


Muscle Memory

by asolitarygrape



Series: With you [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age of Ultron (Comics), Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Drinking, F/M, First Kiss, Hurt Steve Rogers, Identity Issues, Internalized Homophobia, Kidnapping, M/M, Masturbation, Nightmares, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Bucky Barnes, SHIELD/Hydra parallels, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Tesseract, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, flash backs, implied childhood abuse, implied steve/peggy - Freeform, therapeutic responses, vomiting teeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:36:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3549494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asolitarygrape/pseuds/asolitarygrape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...And he remembered seeing red and thinking ‘Fuck’ before reminding himself that that wasn’t a very Captain America thing to be saying. To which Steve Rogers had hastily replied ‘Fuck you’....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Muscle Memory

1  
The room was startlingly quiet. Quiet enough for a faint buzzing to ring in the absence of sound, tickling at some inner hollow space that hummed in his head until Steve grunted. And with that exhale he opened his eyes and found it hard to breathe. There was aching and gasping like he hadn’t felt in Christ knows how many decades, a spasming tugging at his chest as his grunt became a full growl. He shifted himself up but this was a heinous idea in league with ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ 

He collapsed back down onto a hardwood floor and cleared his lungs in a wrenching pull.

The ceiling fan above kept twirling, indifferent, and flashes of a white pulse erupted into his vision. It returned in shattered moments. Flashes of red light and bright misfortune piercing a veil. Stark’s newest plaything, that indomitable metal freak, whistling at them. His team…now where the fuck was his team?

Another bleary attempt at scanning the world around him. He had been in a street....on a street…nah, maybe in the street seeing as the pavement had been torn up and swallowed around him like a cocoon when that thing had tossed him. And his shield had boinged out of view with a comedically church-bell sounding bounce. 

And he remembered seeing red and thinking ‘Fuck’ before reminding himself that that wasn’t a very Captain America thing to be saying. To which Steve Rogers had hastily replied ‘Fuck you’.

He was lying on a hardwood floor. Nice hardwood, felt like a high gloss situation. The wood seemed kind of cheap though, had a little too much give for hardwood—or maybe Steve was really just that goddamn heavy. He drew a short breath, tried the ceiling. High ceilings, with a ceiling fan that dropped down maybe a foot. Probably multiple ceiling fans needed for a space like this. Light was flooding in from the left, large windows…In a loft maybe? Old repurposed factory building? It had an apartment feel, but no shadows or shapes on his periphery that looked like furniture.

He gave another rattled breath, another hard attempt at sitting up and taking in his surroundings. Another strangled gurgle as his ribs confirmed they were cracked, as his organs told him something was very wrong and he should to lie his ass back down.

Steve slunk back, took a breath, assessed the damage. It felt like a goddamn asthma attack. Hadn't felt that in a lifetime. His head gave a tired throb. Another flash of confusion. His shield, someone had picked it out of the pavement. Some onlooker had broken ranks from behind the police line and come running out to grab Captain America’s shield. Steve remembered the police trying to contain the crowd, helping people to escape, and shuffling the streets clean while that thing kept coming at him.

Steve had been on ice. He’d missed Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He missed the bikini and fallout shelters. Air raid sirens and jello. The cold war fanaticism had never touched him. It was the hardest thing to assimilate about life in the twenty-first century. That constant fear, that quiet rumble of distrust. Patriotism as a platitude rather than a moral. He’d been trying to catch up, but he’d missed out on a host of science fiction double features that could have prepared him for killer robots, the atomic menace, red heat… You know, his day job.

Footsteps. Steve broke out of whatever thought was dawning on him next and snapped his eyes at attention toward the sound. Another memory sparked. The civilian that had run out from behind the police barriers, that had grabbed up the shield.

The shield had broken in half, Steve remembered. How the hell had the shield broken?

It had bounced away. And then that civilian had run in and snatched it up—some dumb bastard ran in to the defeated Avengers team and grabbed up Captain America’s shield when Thor, a god, was motionless beside it. As if some poor dumb bastard had any hope when the Hulk had taken off. And Tony, in that fucking nesting doll armor of his, somehow short circuited. And the spies were off somewhere. With Steve Rogers lying in busted up concrete, this poor dumb thankless bastard went running in.

The footsteps didn’t get close enough for Steve to see him. They stayed somewhere on the periphery. Something on the ground was nudged to him with a boot. Steve swallowed and reached blindly, his hand closing around a hard plastic object. With a small struggle he found his arms still had some ability to move. He accepted the thin rectangle and brought it up to his face. An iPad? Is that what these were called?

The screen showed a black and white image, a white triangle overlaid. Steve wasn’t that hopeless, he could recognize a play button. He ticked it with his thumb and the image jumped to life. Howard Stark, sitting in his study a few paces back from a clicking sound which Steve assumed was a film reel. Holding a bottle of scotch that looked so expensive, Steve felt dangerous looking directly at it.

“An…And the truth about SHIELD,” Howard was rambling, slurring, gesturing the bottle around him and making that expensive liquid slosh frighteningly close to the lip of the bottle. “Project Shield, ‘o course, b-being just the five of us. ‘Cause…cause the government wouldn’t just let it alone. Cause when he died it was against protocol, not in the planning, so we had to keep it going. And now Peggy’s all in it, her own damn agency. Director Carter. All built on those lies we told ourselves, that we were helping.”

Stark attempted to stand, pushing himself from the edge of the desk he leant on, tripping forward and grabbing back desperately for solid ground, the bottle clanking and spilling to the floor. Stark snarled at it, “The truth is it’s always been a lie. Project Shield was about protecting Steve Rogers. Without….without any consents of course, clearly, cause we didn’t think he could protect himself. And since he died, why not just keep protecting things?

“They’re…..they’re gonna say I was drunk.” Stark nodded solemnly to himself. “Gonna say I did it to myself. So…so why not let this be my suicide note? Huh?

“I did do it!” Stark announced triumphantly, throwing his hands. “The Summer Soldier aspect of the Shield Project…I made the asset, so why not….If I made it, it works, right?”

Stark tripped back onto the desk, kicking the bottle. A door opened somewhere in the room behind him. “That’s enough!” a voice snarled at him. Well, it would have sounded like a snarl on anyone else. Instead it was a firm, English jab.

“Project Shield,” Stark shouted at the voice as a figure approached Stark at the table and picked the bottle up from the ground.

“Oh dear, this is so hard to find…They only make a single malt once every twenty years.” The gentleman sighed, replacing the bottle on the table.

“Project Shield…Captain America’s shield, were his goddamn handlers in the field.” Stark nodded very intently.

“Yes, sir.” The man righted Stark and turned toward the camera. He cleared his throat in a small chirp. And reached forward toward the lens, “Now how do I turn this contraption off?”

“Captain America’s shield—,” Stark was shouting while the image of a curious looking gentleman screwed up his face and prodded at the camera in front of him, Howard occasionally popping over the man’s shoulder with a disgruntled yell. “The team assigned to finish out any tasks Rogers was uncomfortable finishing, wouldn’t finish. To keep Rogers,”

“Ah!” The gentleman smiled, “There we--.”

The video ended.

Steve blinked at the iPad. This was a youtube video? He looked at the specs that popped up after the video had ended. This was a youtube video. Uploaded 7/26. The battle had been 7/24. What was today? It already had over 10 million views. The title came up as ‘STARK CONFESSION-SUMMER SOLIDER’.

Steve blinked and lowered the iPad back to the floor. He cleared his throat and tried to edge himself to see the figure standing in the room. It was still just out of eyesight, and he was still injured just enough not to be able to catch it.

He made a decent attempt at clearing his throat, “What is today?”

Ringing in his ears; that high pitched whine coming from the emptiness of the room. The dumb bastard who had run out and grabbed up Captain America’s shield, who’d stood between Steve Rogers and that thing and had held up the shield and… Steve paused. “What is today?”

The figure didn’t move. He had taken up the shield and he had ducked over Steve and he had held it up as that thing had come at him. Steve blinked. That dumb bastard had thrown himself between Steve Rogers and that thing. With the shield, and that thing had attacked. And it connected with the shield. And the shield had screamed. Buzzing in his ears, high pitched whine, headache. And the shield had wailed under the pressure and the weight and the dumb bastard had held it up, between him and that thing. And when the pressure kept coming, there had been a whirl of mechanics and a push. And between them, the shield had snapped.

Steve blinked. The shield had snapped. The shield was supposed to be able to absorb all energy, like a dead weight, a solid vacuum. Vibranium. Wasn’t that the point? But between the thing and the dumb bastard, the shield snapped.

Steve blinked. “What is today?”

“The twenty-sixth.” He responded.

Steve drew a slow breath. “You uploaded this? Today?”

He did not answer.

Steve rested his head back, trying not to put any more energy or effort into a lost cause. His ribs ached at his sides. “So why show me? That SHIELD was corrupt? I know that.”

He seated himself beside Steve’s legs, drawing knees up to his chest. “It’s what I was looking for.”

Steve bit the inside of his mouth, “And what was that? Video evidence that Stark was a drunk? I’m pretty sure there’s a sign on the Tower. Or maybe the Tower is a sign…”

“They lied to everyone.” He put his chin onto his knees. He sounded thoughtful. “After Project Insight, I went looking. I had this…itch. So I went looking to see what there was. I knew HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD, but that just meant SHIELD was vulnerable to being infiltrated. The cracks were there all along for something to slide inside.”

Steve stared at the ceiling fan with a new determination. A hand reached out and picked up the iPad. A few taps and corresponding ploiking sounds later, and he held the device back out. “Here, watch this one.”

Steve did not take the iPad. He stared at the ceiling fan, drawing in slow shallow breaths, wondering how much longer it would take to draw some energy and strength back into himself; to sit up and lash out. The hand hung in the air before sighing and lowering the iPad to the ground.

“I went to the museum, to landmarks. Found a guy in Indiana with the largest private collection of Howling Commandos memorabilia.” He sighed, crossing his arms back over his knees and resting his head on them. “So I believed you, but the story wasn’t right. I knew it sounded too…civilian.”

The figure drew a swirl with a metallic finger along the hardwood.

“You don’t think you’re Bucky.” Steve mumbled.

“I don’t think I’d want to be Bucky.” He answered. “That guy was pretty fucked up.”

The figure continued drawing swirls absent mindedly on the floor with his metal hand. It looked worse for ware, probably having taken a beating when it was at the epicenter of the shield cracking in half. You dumb bastard, Steve thought.

His hair was in his face, but it was a uniquely Bucky pose. A mixture of guilt and overconfidence. Steve kept whatever emotion was welling at bay, “Why do you care?”

The figure lifted his head to meet the gaze but looked uninterested, despondent, “I told you. I had an itch.”

Steve tried to pressure himself forward, sliding arms back to gingerly bend but he ended up howling out in pain. The soldier reached out and eased him back, “Don’t,”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Buck.” Steve snarled.

The soldier released and lowered his shoulders in a sigh, “I’m not.”

“So what are you telling me you found out?” Steve snapped. “That we lied to the American people about Captain America? What’s so surprising about that? I’ve had people thinking I live on apple pie and dreams for the past century. And just because--,”

“Project Shield.” The solider answered. “And the Summer Soldier initiative. You don’t know what those are. No one did, SHIELD or HYDRA. It was something no one had clearance for. The five took it to their graves. Except Peggy ain’t technically dead.”

“Don’t talk about her like—,” Steve shouted but it made his ribs feel as if they were caving in. He threw his head back against the floor with a thud.

The soldier drew a pretty treble clef into the flooring, “She was the first place I went when everything didn’t add up. She had the reels.”

Steve swallowed, “She recognized you?”

“I’m hard to miss.” The soldier exhaled. “She had them hidden. You probably been in that room how many times since you thawed, and she still was lying to you." 

The soldier drew closer. “Hold still, you keep squirming and I’m going to have to bandage you up all over again.”

“So you brought me here to tell me?” Steve prodded.

“She didn’t want me to,” The soldier eased back. “Wanted me to keep doing ‘my’ job. But it’s not mine, not if I’m not him.”

The soldier gave a brief, mirthless chuckle. “You know, this is probably the most I’ve talked to a single person in months."

Steve was breathing too hard, thought for a moment that this was all some very manic dream; that he was lying back home with pneumonia and his seventy five year-long fever was just finally about to break; that Bucky’s face was swimming in and out of view because he was either about to succumb or sit up and rejoin the living.

“Watch the video,” The soldier insisted. 

Steve drew a breath, locking eyes with someone that had used to be so familiar. There was no hint behind that steel blue claptrap; no suggestion of warmth. Crestfallen, Steve reached out for the iPad. He lifted it up and saw a frozen black and white image of Peggy Carter and Howard Stark. This video was also uploaded the twenty sixth. Steve drew a breath and nudged the white triangle.

Carter and Stark were standing at opposite ends of a long grey lab table flanked with various grey hues. On the table were a series of documents. There was again the clicking sound of the film reel, but no other obvious audio. This video was earlier, there was no synced microphone. Steve watched as Peggy and Howard had a conversation that was growing heated. After forty seconds, Bucky Barnes walked into the frame and began arguing, standing at the head of the table as if to demonstrate that none of them could stand on the same side of the issue. Bucky was pointing in Starks’ face, shouting, and Peggy stared down, her skin growing white even for monochrome film.

Bucky continued to shout, in silence, as Howard matched his gestures. The film reel cut out when Peggy walked toward the camera and reached to shut the switch off.

“What’s this supposed to tell me?” Steve grumbled.

“When do you think that happened?” The soldier asked. “The records don’t have anything about why those three would be in a room together; it doesn’t fit into any of the time lines.”

“It does.” Steve countered. “After I rescued you, you met Peggy. Stark was always flitting in and out of the scene. It probably was--.”

The soldier scoffed, “Kinda seems like Barnes knew them pretty well. Not some chance encounter.”

“They could have been asking you about being in the Hydra base,” Steve muttered. “Something I wouldn’t have been needed for, or around for. You definitely would have fought with them about Hydra.”

“Why?” The soldier cocked his head to the side. 

Steve knocked his head back down. The soldier continued, “Project Shield were your handlers. You weren’t mean to go into combat. You chose to when you saved the 107th and after that they needed eyes on you.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions.”

The soldier scoffed. “The summer soldier. Do you know what that is? ‘The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country;’.”

“And you’re the winter soldier.” Steve remarked.

The soldier grunted. “The summer soldier initiative was the plan to keep you in the dark. It’s the government’s worry that you would back away from the fight if you knew too much. You’re right. I’m the Winter Soldier. Hydra, or the Red Room, or the Skull, or Pierce didn’t give me that name. It came, preprogrammed, that when you tear everything that was Bucky Barnes out of this person, you’re left with me. I execute the orders that you won’t.”

Steve took a breath and stared at the ceiling fan. “So, Bucky Barnes,”

“Bucky Barnes is dead.” The soldier snapped. “And when he was alive, he wasn’t your friend.”

Steve set his jaw, “Nope.”

“Nope?” The soldier grumbled.

"If Bucky was part of something, he did it because he was my friend.” Steve countered. “Because he was stupid, and loyal, and he didn’t want me to get hurt. Because if there is a Summer Soldier initiative, or Project Shield, he’d have thrown himself into it to protect me.”

The soldier took a long breath, “Peggy had a lot of reels, Steve. Stuff that wasn’t supposed to go public.”

“You made it public.”

“I don’t want to be put in any more boxes.” The soldier retorted.

Steve screwed up his face, anger still curling around his insides, “Why live in hiding then? Why did I have to spend a year looking for you, if you’re just going to have a coming out party complete with destroying my public image?”

“This doesn’t destroy you!” The soldier snapped. “This exonerates you. SHIELD used you from the beginning. You think those five people cared about what happened to you--,”

“If it was you and Stark and Peggy--,”

“PEOPLE IN POWER NEVER CARE ABOUT YOU.” The soldier shouted. “They care about controlling you!! You were their ASSET.”

2  
The following day the soldier did not speak. Perhaps he had blown the proverbial load on their first interaction, or perhaps is was disappointment that Steve did not realize the depth of the soldier's gift. Youtube videos forming a piecemeal origin of SHIELD continued being uploaded. 

The soldier seemed to prefer this to talking. He'd tired of explaining himself. If Steve chose not to see that he was an asset being used by a thankless shadow agency, well, shit.

The clips were playing on the news, uploaded by news agencies who stated they were attempting to decode messages and locate the uploader; that various government agencies were looking into the authenticity of the videos; that the CIA and FBI were scrutinizing the disgraced SHIELD operatives they had employed since the SHIELD civil war... It was enough of a sensation that it nearly dominated the news of Stark's freak. In fact, the only news story greater than SHIELD's continued dismantling, was the continued coverage of Tony Stark's sentient weapons program and it's decision to say fuck it toward the rules of robotics.

Steve was propped up against the wall now, still with his iPad. The stiffness in his neck hadn't subsided, and he assumed that was why the soldier had been so gentle with him and left him on the floor untouched for so long---some fear that prodding him or jostling him about would break the man's neck Fair enough, Steve judged. He had broken through yards of city concrete head first.

Every time he thoughtlessly scratched his head he was left grimacing at the stinging sensation. He would find yet another pebble that had embedded into his skin working it's way out. 

The soldier was rattling around in the kitchen. Steve drew a breath and watched the figure. It was an empty apartment, he'd found out. An impressively sized loft, actually; one Steve wouldn't mind living in. That was the soldier's best method for staying stateside. Finding empty apartments, laying low, avoiding the outdoors in daytime. It sounded clichéd, but it worked. It still works, even in today's society of digital media. Ignore what movies would tell you, it is still very possible to disappear. 

Steve wanted to ask, he had asked, where the soldier had been. What cities had been willing to open themselves to yet another homeless drifter, unimportant and invisible to the respectable masses. He'd been stupid to think it would take Hydra connections, a life time of familiarity with secret intelligence organizations. A sixteen year old could disappear the way the soldier did. A sixteen year old had, now more than eighty years earlier, sleeping on couch cushions and floors, taking leftovers and scraps from hidden plates by the fire escape.

The soldier turned and looked back, must have sensed the change in mood. He was wearing clothes stolen from clothing lines. Steve would bet money on it. But no one around here would have had a clothes line, this was a metal city of glass and plastic. No, Bucky had traveled miles to be here from his hiding places. Ill fitting, baggy mismatches of gingham and denim could attest to a very different town. The soldier kept fiddling with a pan, crusted in scratches and burns, and stolen from where? Some city mission? Some safe house where homeless could wander in unhindered. 

They locked eyes and the soldier had a very brief color illuminate his features, as if he hadn't expected to be caught looking. Steve was scowling, knew he was glaring holes into the soldier. It was unfair that he got to have that face. 

Being Bucky had kept the soldier alive the past year. Ignoring his programming and following his instincts, the soldier had done everything Bucky would have to stay unfound. And then he asked Steve to ignore his face and insisted Bucky Barnes was dead.

If it had happened differently Steve might have had the patience to work with that. Steve might have even been willing to accept it and try to help the soldier as is, whether he wanted to be Bucky or not. Knowing he was alive would have been enough. But in this situation, Steve was fuming. 

Bucky was playing out some memory that had been buried under decades of conditioning and beatings.... he was supposed to help Steve. And that implication that Steve was helpless, that the soldier was somehow more equipped to care for Steve and pull Steve out of another fire, that was the most goddamn annoying Bucky thing of all.

Steve clenched a fist around the iPad that had been sitting idly at his hip. The heat from the electric whirl living inside the plastic sheath warmed his hand. To think this thin file had so much access on it. New reels, uploads, long lost films of your best friends conspiring a top secret government watchdog program....

The Avengers were without their Captain, but that wasn't being publicized yet. The defeat of the Avengers by Ultron was still playing out. The pretty female faces on the news stations were still giving their saccharine smiles and narrating from a teleprompter, practicing their serious faces. Steve found himself hating them. It kept his eyes off of Bucky, at least.

The soldier, he corrected.

He let his head thunk back against the wall. The sun was still burning on his face from the wide widows at his side, leaving red imprints burning in his vision. Light spots flicking into shapes of various lines and polygons.

There had been a soft knock on the glass, a tapping that didn't want to intrude. Steve had pulled himself out of his bed and toward the fire escape, rubbing an eye and grumbling at the cold painted wood under his feet. Seeing nothing, he dipped his head over the ridge of the windowsill, and there on the fire escape Bucky was couching just out of sight. He looked up hopefully at Steve as the smaller boy pried the painted window open with an impressive grunt. That paint seal had been broken several times over, but Steve was not known for his strength. 

Bucky slowly crawled up into the window on his belly, refusing to stand or stretch.

"Buck, what are--?" Steve had stepped away to give the boy room.

"Shh!" Bucky had snapped, hitting the floor with a whump. He immediately jumped back to his feet with a spastic spin, closing the window behind them and slinking into the darkness beneath the window lip. He flushed himself against the wall and looked apprehensively over his shoulder. Steve stood feeling useless, still illuminated by that blue twilight, barefoot and in clothes too small for him, but the best Sarah could do. 

Bucky panted, staring expectantly, his chest heaving, and Steve found himself looking a moment too long and quickly averted his eyes. He actively tried to push the image out of his head, the light hitting Bucky in much higher contrast than it was hitting Steve. Bucky illuminating the dark, his shirt torn with a patch of dark liquid black in the blue light. It made his shirt stick to his chest, made the heaving all the more pronounced, made Steve swallow and look down.

Some neurons fired at each other and Steve knitted his brows. Wait, what?

"Buck, what the hell," Steve knelt down and began picking at his shirt, prying away the fabric from the dark stain. Bucky spun on him, tugging the shirt back with a grumbled 'Hey!' while Steve snapped, "Are you hurt?"

"No! Yes... I'm fine." Bucky gave a pressured exhale and glanced down at the shirt now gripped in his fists.

Steve swatted his hands away with a cocked eyebrow and Bucky slumped back again, frowning. Steve mumbled, "Hell did you do?"

Bucky finally was complicit in pulling his shirt off and showing the gash in his ribs, asserting, "I'll live."

Steve shot him a look full of daggers enough to make the darker boy wad the shirt up and press it over the wound. Bucky chewed the inside of his mouth and refused eye contact.

"What happened?" Steve demanded, "Who are you running from?"

Bucky cleared his throat, drawing back saliva, "It's nothing. Really. I just...I'm going to stay here a few days. Can I do that?"

Steve had lowered his shoulders, though the smug look on his face would never fully dissipate. He got back to his feet, holding a hand out to Bucky. Bucky's face illuminated with enough color that Steve was surprised by how cold his hand was. He helped him on the bed, earning a long hiss from Bucky as his gash stretched. 

Steve whispered to him to be quiet while Steve slipped out of the room. He returned with a brown glass bottle, and Bucky grumbled while the other put alcohol over the gash before wrapping the shirt back around his middle.

"You don't have any bandages?" Bucky whispered and Steve shot him a look, "She'll notice they're missing."

Bucky nodded. Steve replaced the bottle. When he crept back into the room, he shot a glance down toward the living room where Sarah was sleeping on the floor. They couldn't afford for two of them, let alone three. Steve didn't think he had it in him to turn Bucky away, and Sarah certainly would not. And then all three could be one happy, unfed family. It wouldn't cost anything for him to be there, but food...even the rubbing alcohol might be asking too much if Sarah got another infection.

When Sarah had gotten hurt last month it had jeopardized too much. They barely could afford Steve's medications or hospital visits, with both of them unable to work Steve knew they wouldn't make rent. Sarah laughed it off as if living in an attic over a grocery store were a life of luxury and they had something smaller they could scale down to. Steve frowned, that churning sensation in his ribs growing stronger.

"Hey," Bucky whispered and Steve perked and turned his face. He flushed pink,   
realizing he must have been standing in the doorway for minutes, staring off. His hand trembled on the door a moment, but he stepped in and pulled it closed quietly.

Bucky had a square hand over his side, keeping the shirt against the flow of blood. He crouched his back, leant over his knees, but he looked up at Steve with a face that never seemed to fit the situation. It was too bright, too calm and reassuring. 

Steve dropped to sit next to him, sighing. The small cot sagged in the middle and Bucky laughed when their shoulders hit each other, "You need to lose some weight,"

"Ha ha," Steve muttered. He locked his fingers around a wrist as a subconscious reminder that he was small, that the doctors were always telling his mother things like 'failure to thrive' and his mother would correct them and said 'No, no, when Stevie was a baby he was fine'. She was lying, but at least when he was a baby he hadn't had a laundry list of diagnoses. Sarah always acted like getting a diagnosis was your first day of being sick. Steve admired her tenacity, and wished there was a bit more resilience to back it up. If Sarah hadn't had such a talent for lying to herself, she wouldn't have gotten hurt in the first place.

Bucky bumped shoulders with him again, sending the smaller boy sideways. When Steve turned to glower he was met with a soft smile. Bucky was looking at him gently, wheels seemed to turn that didn't squeak loud enough to be spoken. He opened his mouth but filled it with, "I have a job interview tomorrow."

"How did you manage that?" Steve grunted.

"Lied about my age." Bucky stretched back onto the cot, pulling Steve with him. "It'll be all right, I'll get a job, take care of you guys. Be the same of the house around here. Sarah could use it."

Steve sighed and the cot whimpered under their combined weight. In reality, Steve didn't think it would hold up under Bucky's weight if Steve was there or not. What's 95 pounds when there's a healthy, normal red blooded man there to make the bed springs creak? Steve flushed again.

Bucky pulled him in to his shoulder, carefully positioning himself to keep the shirt still waded to his chest, making sure his arm kept pressure where it should while Steve pressed a sharp cheek bone into his collar. Steve relaxed, feeling even smaller, barely comforted by the tightening feeling in his stomach.

"It'll be okay." Bucky soothed him, a hand slowly pressing into the small of Steve's back. Steve flushed but held his ground. He let an arm lock around Bucky, pressing his hand over the wad of shirt enough to feel the blood thrum against his palm. 

"What happened to you?" Steve asked softly. There was a moment of silence where Steve could feel the other tense, his breath held.

"It'll be okay," Bucky repeated firmly.

A shadow crossed over the red light in Steve's eyes. He blinked until the figure swam into view and saw the soldier standing beside him.

"What?" Steve snapped, his eyes refocusing and losing their nostalgia. The soldier stood at attention, blocking the light flooding in from the windows. He was clutching the pan at a right angle to his body. At Steve's outburst, he blinked. Steve softened, "Oh. Oh, thanks."

Steve reached up and took the handle of the pan. Looking in there was a chopped up mess that smelled vaguely of sun dried tomatoes. Steve swallowed, thinking this might have been the same nutritional 'sausage' as he had eaten yesterday when the soldier had presented him with a pan. The soldier immediately stalked away. Steve watched him and swallowed, his chest feeling tight. Words were getting caught somewhere in his larynx and making him feel trapped and small.

"Soldier," He blurted. The soldier turned and looked at him, his face failing to show recognition. "What...what do you want me to call you?"

The soldier considered this for a moment before shrugging, "A name has never been necessary."

"It is now," Steve snapped and worried that his voice was too harsh. He lowered the pan to his lap---knocking aside the iPad, swallowed down the bile and added, "I want to know what I should call you."

The soldier gave this some consideration. "I am not Bucky Barnes."

"No you're not." Steve sighed. The soldier only blinked. If saying so made an impact he didn't show it. 

"A name has never been necessary." He repeated. 

Steve scrutinized his face, "It isn't necessary, but you don't want to be called Bucky Barnes. Is that right?"

The soldier looked confused for a moment, then drew closer to Steve in spite of himself, "I am not Bucky Barnes. Barnes was...I have met people who worshipped Barnes. Buildings full of memorabilia and trivia, artifacts like he was some Egyptian king who never got buried. I am not the person they worshipped. They don't even recognize me."

"I recognize you." Steve muttered.

"You did not worship Bucky Barnes." The soldier rolled his eyes, "You were his friend, you knew him. Of course you would recognize his face."

"Hydra," Steve murmured.

"It's not Hydra!" The soldier snapped. The winds in the room seemed to shift dramatically as the solider swelled with anger. "Not everything is Hydra! I don't recognize you! I don't know who you are! I can get splinters of things, I can read books, I can do whatever there is possible to jog my memory."

"But I'm not in it." Steve looked down.

"No," the soldier snapped, "You're not."

Steve glanced over at the pan sitting on his leg. It still had some warmth but it wasn't exactly burning a hole through him. The holes were already there.

"I'm not Hydra!" The soldier snapped. Steve grumbled 'No, I know that', but the soldier shouted, "There is more to me than Hydra!"

"I know," Steve nearly whispered, refusing to look up. His head began to throb angrily. 

The soldier snarled. "I'm not the broken one!"

Steve glanced up smugly, "Right."

"You are broken!" The soldier shouted, pointing toward the windows, walking closer. "They brain washed you into...into thinking what they were using you for was right! I knew what I did was wrong!"

Steve lowered his shoulders, a huge search lamp of vulnerability shining on his face. The solider was encouraged by it, leaning in, "That's what the serum does. Zola's, Erksine's, it doesn't matter. It doesn't make you a super human. It takes everything about you and amplifies it. I knew what I was doing was wrong then, now, and everywhere in between. And I push through it, because that's what I do. And you, you're just always going to be naive." 

Steve opened his mouth to counter but the soldier beat him to it, grunting, "All those things about yourself that you push down and hide have been on your sleeve this whole time, they see it, and they use it."

Steve set his jaw, "Does it make it suck less for you, to put all of your crazy on me? Or is this a misery loves company thing?"

"I want to help you," The soldier grunted.

"HOW?" Steve jerked forward but the shooting pain in his spine and ribs pulled him immediately back down, tears threatening the corners of his eyes. He trembled. "Why help me?"

After a beat the soldier said, "It's the first thing I've wanted."

Steve swallowed, emotion welling at his chest that he did not want to take ownership of. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

The soldier looked genuinely dismayed, "No."

3  
Steve stood in the bathroom, picking at bits of gravel embedded in his forehead with a breadknife. It was not his weapon of choice, being unwieldy and dull, but it was a necessity. The soldier's knives where kept hidden away more securely and treated with more reverence than was Steve. Steve didn't even have the slightest idea of how he would go about finding them. The breadknife at least seemed symbolic. Of the days of broken radiators and government cheese. Making do, wot wot.

Cleaning up the mess with a requisite bottle of brown glass filled with stinging unpleasant liquid, Steve cracked his neck delicately to the side. It was stiff, so it needed to be done, but he still remained concerned that the slightest pop out of place and the soldier would have a dead Steve on his hands.

Massaging his throat he looked back at his reflection with a sigh. There are things about men's souls that can only be seen in dirty mirrors. He needed to shave. It had at least been five days since he had. He usually shaved every two. It wasn't a drastic turn out, but it was enough to serve as a reminder that he was away from his team. He should be at the Tower. Should be helping to take down that thing. Should be focusing on something important, not playing house with a sociopath sharing his best friend's body.

Steve sighed at a familiar knock on the bathroom door. It was well timed, since the knock was followed by the thought 'Did I just consider shaving with a bread knife?'

Calling it a knock was maybe an exaggeration. It was a near-silent nod toward a knock, the gentle tap of something being placed on the ground in the general proximity of the door, and maybe a harsh breath in the door's direction. The soldier didn't like overtly drawing attention to himself but occasionally felt the need to. Especially since Steve had gotten moving on his feet, the soldier couldn't expect there to be a pile of rippling muscles on the floor when he felt like interacting with it.

Steve opened the door and instinctively glanced down. The iPad had been gingerly deposited facing the bathroom door, a large white triangle denoting a play button. Steve knelt down as slowly and carefully as he could, imagining each vertebrae carefully flexing and relaxing into the motion. The silent driving fear that he had very nearly broken his back--that save for a magic potion and a few good vibes, he really would have broken his back--was alive and well.

Bringing the iPad to eye level, Steve took a breath. Behind the white triangle was a shadowy image in black and white. Another one of the soldier's videos he had somehow gotten from the former director of SHIELD, Peggy Carter. Steve had initially doubted Peggy would have kept something like this hidden so well for so long, but this was quickly dismissed by the equally admiring 'It's Peggy'. If Peggy wanted something, it was so.

Peggy was one on a very short list of people who had wormed their way into Steve scrappy and albeit wormy heart. And he continued aching at the thought of where she was now. 

Swallowing back what trepidation was left, Steve pressed the play button, leaning against the wall.

There was broken sound, warbled and fuzzy--like the old phonograph's Steve had heard when he was young. Some of the first sounds ever recorded sounded this way. At times the clarity pitched, but it quickly ebbed back down into the lull of fuzzy indifference.

The image was that of Peggy Carter's face. Smiling bright as she found small pride in herself for adjusting the lens and connecting some contraption correctly. She leant away from the camera, her upper body coming into view around her as she leant back. She adjusted her blouse quickly in a nervous tic. She spoke in a warbled mess to the camera saying "Hidden tracking......device....optics......successful implant....."

Steve found the breath catching in his chest as Peggy gave a broken report. And what exactly was she reporting into? Some Stark technology, a miniature camera loaded into a small discrete device. Likely a compact mirror or lipstick which Peggy could have easily hidden but would have loathed to carry if it hadn't had some dubious purpose.

She took another step back and looked expectantly toward her left, her whole body now in view as she made room to show off the bounty of whatever successful implant she was referring to. From camera right stepped Captain America. Steve felt his shoulders withdraw into himself.

This man, dressed as Captain America, stepped beside Peggy and gave a meager half smile toward the camera.

"Bucky?" Steve grunted.

The voice on the video played out, "Able to....Russian....mission complete....Captain...."

It was Bucky's voice. Steve nearly spiked the iPad into the floor. Bucky was dressed as Captain America. Bucky was standing beside Peggy reporting on a mission into some covert camera. Bucky was smiling. For some reason this pissed off Steve the most. A lingering flutter in his chest pained at hearing that voice sounding familiar rather than pressured, made his bones ache to see the two of them speaking together with familiarity. But the flutter quickly became an angry throb. He didn't watch the rest of the video, couldn't make out what was happening anyway. He gripped the iPad and felt it give a feeble crunch. That poor plastic case had been taking a lot of his abuse the past few days.

Steve held it down by his hip to avoid looking at the frozen image of Bucky, smiling, from behind his mask. He strode out into the living room, taking careful breaths, minding his fragile spine. When the soldier was not to be found in the main room, Steve strode angrily into the bedroom.

His shoulders immediately slumped and whatever anger had been tightening his muscles drained out of his feet into a puddle of panic on the floor.

The soldier was huddled, hugging his shoulders, rocking, his back bouncing against the wall. The self soothing gesture made that limp, greasy hair sway at it's ends, but around the soldier's face it was plastered with sweat against his forehead. He didn't look toward the sound, toward the small huff of anger still held in Steve's lungs before it eeked out into concern. His eyes seemed fixed on a point in the middle distance, unwavering. Still, there was some recognition in his muscles, in his stance, in the way he rocked, that showed the soldier knew he was not alone.

Steve immediately lowered himself to the floor so that the solider and he could be at eye level, not wanting to take any actions or movements which might show dominance or aggression. He calmed his own breathing, let the iPad stay where it fell, and edged slowly closer to the soldier. There was a near flinch and Steve said, calm and detached, "Can I sit next to you?"

The soldier continued rocking, the small circular movements of swaying. His eyes flickered toward Steve and then resumed at their target. He gave a short, curt nod.

Steve pulled his back to the wall in the same way, hugged his knees to his chest, tried to mirror the soldier's movements as much as possible. With as direct and emotionally void voice as Steve could maintain, he added, "Can I touch you?"

The soldier took longer to respond, rocking steadily against the wall, his back coming in and coming out of contact. Steve watched this carefully and prompted, "Let me,"

The soldier's breathing shifted and then carefully, "Okay."

"Okay, I have permission to touch you?" Steve echoed.

"Okay," The soldier mumbled, voice flat. "You can touch me."

Steve slowly slipped his arm between the soldier's back and the wall as the soldier rocked forward. The soldier continued to hit his spine into Steve's arm, throwing a little more force into the movement now. Steve swallowed and drew a breath, "You need to ground."

"Uh-huh." The soldier mumbled.

Steve chewed the inside of his mouth while shoulder blades smacked into his forearm. He'd seen plenty of flash backs. They weren't what a movie might have you think---some elaborate physical nightmare where a victim tragically replays and re-experiences trauma. I mean, they were that too--don't get me wrong. But a person didn't need to throw themselves on the floor and scream to be having a flashback. Flashbacks more often were quiet, and painful.

"Hey," Steve prompted, keeping his voice as blank and non-judgmental as he could stomach. "You still with me?"

"Yep." The soldier grunted, slapping his back into Steve's arm.

"I'm gonna touch you, okay?" Steve warned, "It's just me."

"Kay."

The next time the soldier slapped his back into Steve's arm, Steve clasped his hand onto the soldier, curling his arm around the man tightly. The soldier exhaled quickly, seemed to panic for a moment, then tightened the circles of his rocking to accommodate the new arm. 

"This okay?" Steve asked.

"Okay." The soldier parroted.

"You shutting down on me?" Steve cocked his head to the side. The soldier exhaled. Steve tensed, "I mean it, you're not having very many emotions right now, buddy."

"Never have very many emotions." The soldier grumbled.

"That's a lie and you know it." Steve let a smile escape. He pulled the soldier in tighter, turning toward him. The plan fiddling though Steve's brain was to be as grounding and human a force as one man could be.

The soldier began to glance from the middle distance toward Steve and back.

Steve cleared his throat, "You're safe, you're with me."

The soldier nearly chortled, but that word didn't seem like it fit him so Steve dismissed it. Steve pressed, "You're with me. Right here, in this crappy little loft you're hiding us in. You're hidden. It's just me here. In the bedroom."

The soldier's rocking slowed but still erupted in small waves. He exhaled pointedly and Steve took the opportunity to pull him into a hug. "It's okay, it's me."

"Steve?" the soldier grunted.

"Yeah?"

The soldier cleared his throat, "You don't have to...I'll be fine, I've gotten used to..."

"Come on," Steve tightened his arms. "Like I'd let go of you for anything less than being miraculously cured."

The soldier smiled and tipped his head toward Steve. The other beamed, losing the hopefully stoic and calming demeanor he had been attempting. He loosened the hug briefly which left the soldier looking confused and hurt, only to adjust himself, mashing onto the soldier and clamping his arms around him. Steve smiled, his face successfully hidden in the other's hair.

Hesitantly, the soldier patted his back.

"You're here with me?" Steve prompted.

"I'm here." The soldier muttered.

"Prove it."

The soldier drew a slow breath, which Steve felt from beginning to end. A small monster crept into his stomach and took up residence in his emotions. The soldier muttered, "The room is white, the floor is wood. I am looking at a radiator under a window. You're here, you're touching me...You're hugging me. I'm...fine."

"I'm not letting you off that easy." Steve murmured.

The soldier sighed, "You're sitting in front of me, on my foot actually. And you're pressing me up against the wall. The wall is on my back, it's...cold. And you're warm. You're pressed to me and your face is by my ear and I can feel your heart on my ribs. And you're...familiar. And I said you could be here. But you don't smell great."

Steve grinned at the wall, "You haven't paid for the water, otherwise I'd take a shower."

The solider seemed to consider this seriously.

Steve began to withdraw his arms. The soldier leant forward and grunted, "No."

Steve blinked and closed his arms again. "Okay."

"I'm grounded." The solider protested.

"Are you worried you'll go back to the flashback if I let go?" Steve asked. The soldier grumbled, indignant. Steve added, "You know, there's no shame if..."

"Stop talking." The soldier ordered. He pressed his face forward against Steve.

A thousand mini possibilities ran through Steve's head from the most elaborate melodramas of Steve saving Bucky as his damsel in distress and Bucky declaring his love and adoration--to the most horrific images of Bucky being twisted and tortured and stripped of his humanity, with Steve serving as nothing more than a meat puppet that had enough of a soul to appeal to the broken one. Steve wanted to close himself like a bandage over the solider and pretend reality was somewhere between the two.

When the solider exhaled against his throat Steve caught himself smiling and snapped his eyes open, greeted by the white wall behind them. He wasn't certain where his mind had begun to wander off too, but he was certain it wasn't where the solider would want it to be.

His heart thudded at his ribs, at Bucky's ribs. It might be the solider inhabiting it, but those were Bucky's ribs where Bucky felt Steve pressed against him. And the blonde felt choked and closed his eyes again.

In Italy, Steve had half carried Bucky to his commandeered hotel room, the other giggling the whole way through the hall, shouting about Captain America at people who neither spoke English nor liked Americans. The hotel had been taken when the allies invaded several of the northern cities, pulling through the area like a mardi gras parade. Taking or torching what they pleased, the soldiers had flaunted through the streets like the unworldly, teenage boys they undoubtedly were.

Bucky, on the other hand, had not bothered with pageantry. Bucky had gotten drunk. Unshamefully, unabashedly, without a single shred of grace or hesitation, drunk.

The hotel room smelled of stale beer, the bed barely more than a moldy cot with a pea green blanket that scratched. Steve knocked over a lamp and crunched on it's pieces while staggering into the door way, reaching hopefully for a light switch. One was not   
found.

"The one good thing about this," Bucky was slurring while Steve slumped him from being propped on his shoulder to being half on his cot. Bucky gave a large, dumb grin to Steve, pulling him into a hug while the blonde struggled to bring the other's legs onto the bed. "You can take care of me, now."

Steve gave an exasperated smile, "Sure, that's what you care about."

Bucky wrapped his arms around the other's neck as his face split into a massive smile, "I...can get drunk...as I want.. an' I don' feel guilty 'bout leaving you anywhere. Hell, you take me wif...with..with you. Pick me up like goddamn garbage."

"Let go, you're gonna fall off the--."

"Amn't!" Bucky protested.

"Buck, come on." Steve sighed. His voice cracked in a laugh. He'd never been this properly drunk, never thought he'd even seen someone be this properly drunk. And now, thanks to the serum in his veins, and repopulating in his veins, he would likely never be a fraction of Bucky's current level of drunkness.

Bucky pulled himself up, his elbows locking as he hoisted himself on Steve's weight, "We should go somewhere."

"Hmmm," Steve smiled, trying to force the other onto the cot. "You've been enough places tonight."

Bucky buried his face into Steve's shoulder. "I'm with you. You're Captain America. That's practically a reason."

Steve laughed and tucked his head down, Bucky's breath hot and fast at his neck, tickling at him.

"I can feel your heart on my ribs." Bucky mumbled. He pulled Steve down, refusing to part with his neck. "I used...I used to feel for your heartbeat when you were sleeping--"

"Bucky," Steve warned.

"--cause I used to think you'd die in your sleep. Used to scare me." Bucky mumbled, his voice going dark and sweet. "You were so thin it was like your heart was beatin' in my hand, Stevie."

"Bucky." Steve's voice dropped. Bucky smiled against his neck.

"Everything else about you changed," Bucky whispered. He giggled to himself, at some private joke, his arms locked around Steve's ribs and continuing to tug at him, trying to urge him onto the bed. "You got all big, and dumb. But it's still your heart. That's the same. Already was too big..."

Steve nearly moaned, "Buck."

The solider perked up, "What?"

Steve blinked back into the present. "Nothing...Nothing."

"I'm not--"

"No, I know." Steve snapped. He exhaled and smoothed himself away, the solider already releasing his grip. The soldier brushed his face with the heel of a palm while Steve found himself staring into nothingness and counting breaths. He felt pressured to say something, to perhaps apologize, when a second though seized him and he instead exhaled, "I know you're not Bucky."

"Good." The solider looked slightly offended, perhaps even a little embarrassed. Steve found himself looking into that face and exhaling a much deeper, more painful breath.

"You have to give me time with that," Steve pleaded. "Because you have to admit, you look a lot like him."

This nearly pulled a small, polite laugh from the soldier and Steve found himself smiling warmly back. He licked his lips, "Even if you aren't him, this was still his body. That's his heart. He's alive. I just got him back, please don't take that from me."

The solider considered Steve with a blank expression, then stood in a motion and stepped aside. Steve hung his head, exhaling hard, a creature made of a thousand fingers and dripping blood pooling from his chest as it clawed through his--

"Here," The soldier was standing at his side, holding out the iPad. Steve blinked and looked up at him. His face still blank, with a slight twinge of pity. He extended out the iPad as if it were radioactive and he wanted no part of it touching him. Steve exhaled and gently accepted the offering. The solider immediately turned and stepped out of the room.

Steve watched after him, the many fingered monster still probing at his insides in a dull thud, promising continued haunting and pain at a scale of unimaginable ebb and flow. Steve accepted it after a moment, then looked at the iPad. A second video had been cued.

Bucky Barnes was smiling from behind a white triangle, mid laugh. Steve felt something crack and looked up at the empty space the soldier had just occupied.

4  
Bucky sat on the edge of the bed, kicking his feet in the air. His hands firmly planted behind him to keep balance, he screwed up his face and shot his legs out. Steve, swaddled like a burrito, but at a time where he had never heard of a burrito, watched this gesture with extreme jealousy. Bucky always seemed to take for granted that he didn't need swaddling, even if Bucky would wager Steve took for granted having a mother willing to swaddle him. Steve sniffed. Sarah was still on shift at the hospital and he'd been told he had to stay in doors after school. It was cold outside and Sarah couldn't afford any more hospital visits until the new year. Bucky had followed behind him like a lost puppy, despite Steve's protests.

Steve had eventually learned to stop protesting and the two had walked in silence into the apartment. When Steve had pulled himself up onto his bed and turned, Bucky was already there with the blanket, piling it over his head.

"What d'you want to do?" Steve cleared his throat in a high pitched chirp. He immediately flushed and wished puberty would take hold soon. Sarah liked to tell him he was just too young still, but Steve knew Bucky already sounded different, looked different. When they were little it hadn't been such a divide, but at twelve Steve felt like he had gone from runt of the litter to a flea on the runt.

Bucky shrugged and continued kicking the air.

Steve settled into his nest and considered this. "You don't jus' want to sit here with me."

"Why not?" Bucky didn't hesitate.

Steve harrumphed into his cloth dungeon. Despite the wooly knit around him his nose was cold. His toes were cold. He huddled in on himself, but he didn't have much more warmth to offer. But Bucky could sit there without a blanket and be fine. The idea wound around Steve's head like a noose.

"We could go down to the diner." Steve suggested.

"Your ma said no." Then Bucky added, "With what money?"

Steve slumped again and drew a tepid breath, feeling his nose freeze a bit. "Only five cents for coffee."

"You say 'only' like it means somethin." Bucky muttered. Then added, "Coffee makes you short. Don't need any more of that."

Steve shrank further into his bones. "I just want to do something. Jus' cause I get sick, doesn't mean you have to sit here."

"I want to sit here." Bucky argued.

Steve blinked and huddled the blanket over his shoulders more. The gesture finally earned a glance from Bucky who adjusted himself on the cot and turned toward Steve, "You warm?"

"I'm okay." Steve shrugged.

Bucky did not seem to buy it, giving a very gentle look in Steve's direction. Steve blushed, under the doctor's view again. He always hated being prodded, poked at, looked at as if he was just some quiet little snowflake waiting to melt. Bucky's look of concern was enough to melt him. So rather than be flustered under it, Steve snapped back, "I'm fine!"

"Yeah," Bucky mumbled. He reached out and pinched Steve's nose, earning a loud squeak of complaint as Steve reared back to avoid it. Bucky asserted, "You're cold."

"I'm fine!" Steve shouted at him, drawing up like a lion in his mind but a caterpillar in reality. Bucky giggled and brought his knees up.

"What's with you?" Steve snapped at him. 

Bucky shrugged. He hugged his knees, tucking his chin over them as best he could. He'd already sprouted about six inches taller than Steve, which had Steve glaring at his legs as if they were the enemy. After a long pause, Bucky sighed, "Anne Mary Sullivan asked me if I wanted to kiss her."

Steve cocked an eyebrow. "So you go with her now?"

"No." Bucky rolled his eyes. "I said no."

Steve cocked his whole head, "Why not?"

"Don't want to." Bucky shrugged. Steve narrowed his eyes at him. Bucky gave another, more dramatic shrug, "I don't like her. Besides, don't like girls doing that. If I like you, I'll go to you. S'not like people think I'm shy."

"If I had girls come up to me, I'd go for it." Steve muttered.

Bucky shrugged. 

"So why you all caught up on it, if you don't like her?" Steve sighed, rolling his eyes around the room.

"Dunno," Bucky muttered, "Got me thinking."

"Bout?" Steve prodded. He quietly fumed. Bucky wasn't shy, that was fact. When Bucky typically got quiet like this, it was because he knew Steve wouldn't like what he was thinking. Or because he knew Steve would get in trouble. And what made that more irritating was the wait for Bucky to just say it---since Steve already knew he'd do it.

"You ever kiss a girl?"

The intensity of Steve's glower was enough Bucky physically reared back and awkwardly gave a self-pity laugh. Something caught in his chest, Bucky recovered, "I--I mean, you ever kiss anyone? Like, it gets different."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Steve grunted.

"Like," Bucky grasped at straws, "Like, when you're little and somebody kisses you it's not a big deal. But, it changes. You kiss different."

Steve sighed again, "Yeah, don't know what you're talking about."

"Here," Bucky leaned forward, however Steve equally leaned back, shooting a look of extreme disapproval. Bucky cocked an eyebrow, "It doesn't mean anything."

Steve harrumphed and Bucky leant in, quickly pecking his lips to Steve's and pulling back. "See?" Bucky sighed, "That's nothing."

"That's not what she wanted?" Steve asked, actively ignoring a fist clenching in his stomach.

Bucky shook his head. He hesitated before hovering back into Steve's space, closing his eyes. Steve spent approximately .08 seconds panicking and wondering if he should punch him. After a moment where one, or both boys, wavered, Steve leant in and Bucky felt the nerve to close the distance, pressing his mouth over Steve's. Bucky drew in a breath through his nose, robbing Steve's face of some of it's heat. A light tickle but one which made Steve shudder. Bucky parted his lips, drawing breath from Steve's mouth and closing gently on his lower lip. Steve reflexively closed his mouth over Bucky's until Bucky exhaled and pulled away.

There was a sharp pang in his chest and Steve looked anxiously back at Bucky, who seemed to be scanning the other for a reaction. Steve offered, "That's weird."

Bucky blinked and gave a curt nod. 

"When does my chest stop hurting?"

The other released the breath he had been holding and smiled.

Steve began to smile back when the light from the window behind Bucky caught his eye. Steve lowered his shoulders, worried, and stalked off of the bed to the window, dropping the blanket along the way. 

He had an odd sensation, like Alice eating the mushroom. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach he blamed Bucky kissing him. Looking out the window, there was whooping on the street. It was dimly lit, a nightscape of downtown Vienna. Some soldiers were on the street below arguing with a prostitute. Their CO was getting involved and an elderly couple crossing the street were laughing at them and muttering in German. Steve sighed and rolled his eyes, turning back toward Barnes. 

Bucky was curled up in the cheap hotel bed, blanket wrapped around his waist, with his shed uniform scattered as if he had exploded rather than undressed. He grumbled sleepily. Steve exhaled a smile, lowering his shoulders further. He strode up to the bed and sat on the edge, "You kissed me."

Bucky laughed and covered his face with the mealy grey pillow they'd been offered. "Leave me alone."

"No," Steve ran a hand over the other's side. Bucky flinched and swung the pillow at Steve.

After catching the pillow and matting it down over Bucky's face, Steve took a hit to the ribs that was enough to actually have him bend in half. Bucky laughed and reclaimed the pillow, shoving it under his head while Captain America sat up and glared at him.

Bucky smirked, "If you can't fly, don't fuck with eagles."

"Right," Steve agreed, leaning over him and forcing his mouth over the soldier's. Bucky laughed through his nose and shoved him off the bed.

Steve rubbed his face as he got up off of the ground. He anxiously readjusted his uniform, taking a deep breath and looking at the lights ahead of him. Steve hated all of this pageantry. He strode out, smiled, shook the president's hand. He looked appropriately pleasant toward all of the cameras, giving the most genuine smile he could fake. His chest was churning. As he scanned the crowd of bright lights and various seated military and press correspondents, his eyes caught on Barnes. 

Bucky stood at the far end of the banquet room, looking fearsome and dark. His hair matted in his face, he was making fists, full kevlar tactical gear strapped over his body. Steve looked hopefully at him and asked, "When does my chest stop hurting?"

Steve saw stars and stripes, little bald eagles floated around his head chanting 'Cap's a goner'. Steve was knocked off his feet, sent spiraling sideways. His hand shot up to his temple and pulled back enough blood he thought he may have accidentally pulled his brain out. He spun to look toward his attacker and there Iron Man was approaching him carrying Captain America's shield, dented and splattered with Steve's abundant head blood.

"Tony," Steve propped himself up. But another THWANG and the shield ricocheted off of Steve's skull, knocking him back. Steve coughed as blood filled his mouth, his front teeth feeling dented in. He slowly managed a sitting position when Stark shouted, "Where are you?!"

Steve turned onto his hands and knees, coughing teeth. Literally, coughing goddamn teeth out of his skull. After the first thirty teeth, a swelling feeling of dread began to fill his ribs. He didn't have that many goddamn teeth, where the hell were they coming from? Steve began choking on the teeth, still pouring out of his mouth, and became self assured they were going to asphyxiate him.

Bucky took a swing at his face and Steve was knocked from his hands and knees flat onto his back. Bucky loomed over him, "Why didn't you look for me?!"

Steve attempted to sit up, putting his hands in front of him to show his submission, to accept his blame. His heart aching he worked his way toward standing and whimpered, "Bucky, please,"

However, once Steve was back at full height, the image of a black clad soldier had been replaced by a superior weapons unit. The metal freak was standing at full height, examining Steve with a mixture of indifference and spite. Steve felt his organs begin to curl in on one another and blend in a slurry of pain and worry. He took a step back. The metal freak split his head in a grin--and why the fuck did Stark give that thing teeth?

Steve continued stepping back and away from the monster, but it appeared to grow and loom over him, smoke rising out of the concrete. Steve panicked, realizing he didn't know where his shield had bounced off to. He was alone, in the street, when the monster put its head down and began to charge.

Steve jerked forward, his hair sticking to his forehead as he fought against the air, throwing out punches and gasping. A set of arms clamped around him and he began to struggle, thrashing against the figure, a choked sob pulled out of his lungs and hanging in his throat as he attempted to twist away.

“It’s okay,” A slow rumble came from his attacker. Steve gave another weak sob, now drawing air into his lungs too quickly, his chest feeling hollow and rattling. It sent shivers radiating through his limbs and he moaned against the sensation in his feet, the stiffness in his neck. He was broken. He was dying in the concrete.

The arms around him tightened and pulled him in, putting pressure enough that Steve thrashed less. Cried more. He couldn’t take in air fast enough, his face feeling hot and wet. Steve whimpered. The rumble came again, like rocks being rubbed smooth, “It’s okay, Steve.”

Steve gave a strangled cry and his face was pressed into the figure, a hand holding his head still. He couldn’t hold back the out pour of tears, but slowly blinked into reality. His thrashing stopped. Steve continued gasping, his heart felt like a speed bag. The soldier crushed him still.

“What?” Steve managed before relaxing against the soldier. He collapsed, his neck sore, his spine still feeling an ache that made his fingers numb. The soldier cradled him and offered, “Where are you?”

Steve blinked. A bolt of electricity went through his brain. “It was a nightmare?”

“Where are you?” The soldier repeated. Steve let him take his weight. He gathered what neurons were still firing and gasped against the soldier’s chest.

“I’m…I’m not having a flashback.” Steve muttered, his eyes scraping closed against cloth. “It was a nightmare.”

“Where are you?” He was unrelenting.

Steve took a careful breath and opened his eyes, “I’m staring at your clavicle, I guess.”

“Don’t be cute.” The soldier grumbled.

Steve took that somewhat personally and sighed, “I’m in the loft where you are hiding out. I am on the floor in the living roomish area. I have an awful head ache, my head is throbbing, and I’m with you. And you’re holding me still because I was…not being still.”

“Okay.” The soldier eased back. Steve looked up at him; tried to decide how much of this was the soldier mimicking Steve from the day before, how much was the soldier’s experience with nightmares, and how much was Bucky Barnes. The soldier didn’t seem to be looking at him, just present in the room.

“I don’t have flashbacks,” Steve added.

The soldier gave him a smug look which suited Barnes to a T. “You have them all the time.”

Steve propped himself up on his elbows, completely loosening himself from the soldier, “I think I would know.”

“You get all blank and stare off.” The soldier protested. “You call me Bucky, you’re thinking about him.”

“That,” Steve began to protest but fell short.

“It’s like you don’t know where you are,” Bucky added.

Steve sighed through his nose and wondered how he had messed up the part where he was getting hugged. He wanted to go back to that. He ran a hand over his face, brushing the chilled sweat away from his eyes.

His neck was still stiff, still aching. He carefully lowered himself back onto the hardwood, one vertebrae at a time, feeling his body creak. Above him the solider sat in protest, crossing his arms at the accusation that Steve was well.

“Why are you taking care of me?” Steve mumbled, staring at the ceiling fan ahead of him.

The soldier shifted his stance, but kept the arms crossed. “ I answer your questions after you answer mine. Are you trying to get yourself killed? I’ve seen the news reels,” The soldier grunted. “I’ve watched you on all the major networks, been to the museum. Surprised there isn’t a theme park yet. You’re jumping two feet into every dumb suicide mission that comes your way. Why?”

Steve stared uncomfortably at the ceiling fan. Wondered what it would be like to be a ceiling fan. Decided he would get dizzy.

The soldier was exasperated. He shifted himself and laid down on the hardwood beside Steve, staring up at the ceiling fan with an equally angry existential crisis. His metal arm thunked onto the wood and Steve thought he might have heard it sag. The soldier mumbled, "When the flashbacks started, is that when the suicide missions started?"

"You're not qualified to be my therapist." Steve mumbled.

Steve thought for a moment about where he was in life. That he had gone to sleep one night in 1944; his best friend was Bucky Barnes, his best gal was Peggy Carter, the worst thing in the world was a vegetarian in Germany. He woke up one morning; his best friend was dead, his best gal had dementia, and there were so many things in the world he couldn't keep a handle on which was the worst. 

Except, turns out, the only true thing was that he was lost. His best friend hadn't died--but he hadn't been on ice either; he was alive and awake and a beating heart being ripped into a new person. And Peggy had been full of secrets--well she would be, wouldn't she? Steve had a hard time doing anything but smile at that.

Steve drew a slow breath. It wasn't seventy years ago, it was about three in Steve's mind. Three years where everything he knew was pulled out from under him and he was left in a world with monsters. Three years ago Bucky Barnes was the most charismatic and kind human being in his world, and now he was a serial killer with only flickering licks of humanity burning him up inside.

He was the last person Steve wanted advice or counseling from. 

"Soldier?" Steve muttered.

The soldier didn't respond but Steve was confident he had his attention. Steve drew a slow breath, "I need to go to the tower. I need my team."

The soldier mocked. "Back into battle, then?"

"I need to finish my mission." Steve hoped the soldier would appreciate that. "I can't leave my men behind."

"I just got him back, please don't take him from me." The soldier responded gruffly.

Steve swallowed and edged his neck stiffly toward the soldier. He let his eyes wash over the soldier's profile. The shape of his face remained indifferently focused on the ceiling, his eyes soft. The light was too dim to make out further features, but Steve knew the lines and contours better than he would admit. His chest swelled at the thought that he could make out his eyelashes fanned over his lids, his brow raised slightly as his face was relaxed. Steve had studied him for years, drawn him carefully, sketched him from memory, stared deep into paper and breathed into it.

"Come with me, then. " Steve pressed.

"So I can watch you die." The soldier retorted. "If Barnes was arguing to go out there you'd say the same thing."

Steve smacked his head back and stared at the ceiling with him. A hollow feeling built in the pit of his stomach. "But I'm not that smart."

The soldier flinched and Steve needed to check several times to confirm that it had been a laugh. 

5  
The soldier winced as Steve ran his hand over his forehead, brushing back sweat and hair from his eyes. Steve had not taken his opportunity to run, which only proved further that he was an Asset. Steve couldn't think for himself; the soldier nearly tut-tuted and shook his head. He couldn't help but stay in the loft, even now when he was able to move about freely, because he felt obligated to stay with the solider. Whatever programming SHIELD had, it was something stronger than the soldier had seen before.

The soldier watched as Steve tucked the blanket around him, muttering soft comments while a surplus of concern welled from behind his stoic mask of duty. The poor Asset genuinely cared, genuinely believed that what he was doing was right--still, even now. The soldier felt his own growing pity for the creature as Steve caught eyes with him, an obedient sigh leaving the blonde.

The soldier had left to gather supplies earlier in the day, having given Steve a debriefing regarding his current objectives. The soldier had expected, given the information he had been plying Steve with, that the blonde would have been gone upon his return. The soldier considered saying so much in his briefing, but did not wish to bias his data. He had instead allowed Steve to act independently, as that was his hope all along. That Steve would act independently; see this option for freedom, his life away from SHIELD, and take it.

When the solider had returned, admittedly worse for wear and not under the circumstances he had hoped for, he had been in no mood to see the ever-loyal Steve Rogers still lingering in the loft as a lost child might.

The soldier had collapsed, despite the relative success of his mission, carrying two garment bags of supplies and updating clothing--seeing as the solider had been under the same guise for some time. He had also gathered a few indulgences, such as a blanket, additional clothes, in the instance Steve was still at the loft when the solider arrived. He had difficulty justifying this, yet he wanted it intrinsically---and the solider had not been denying himself anything since leaving Hydra. 

They really ought to change locations. Nearly a week had been spent in the loft, and especially given the soldier's current state, it was fair to assume that the setting had been compromised. The soldier had only returned because he had known, begrudgingly, that Steve would not have left.

He had told this to Steve now seven times. He had urged the need for their departure and suggested potential rendezvous points throughout the city, but the blonde was too thick to acknowledge. He had instead eased the soldier out of his soaked clothing, redirected the soldier, buried him under the new attire and blanket, and muttered small assurances. 

The soldier was outraged, however physically complied with all requests. A small terror began to flow in his chest. He seemed caught in a crossfire between his normal approach and the flickers of new emotions he had been feeling over the past few days. Not to say the soldier didn't have emotions; he had enormous emotions, amazing excellent loud displays of emotions. But these new emotions were different. They were quiet emotions, matured emotions. But as docile as they appeared, they ached.

The soldier found himself studying Steve Rogers, watching the blonde's careful movements as he laid the soldier out and dressed him, rubbing life back into muscles that had led to his collapse. The soldier barely acknowledge what had happened--his flight while caught stealing from open windows, his fall from a three story fire escape. These were normal occurrences in his life, though typically the soldier didn't have to deal with injury. He couldn't entirely remember how it was he always got better, but he always did. He hadn't come into many situations where this had been a problem, and he didn't appreciate Steve Rogers sticking his broken nose into it.

But oh, he did appreciate it. The soldier grumbled to himself and turned his face away as Steve looked over the bruises on his legs and eased his hands against flesh. The soldier grunted and protested, but oh he felt safe with Steve Rogers running his big dumb square hands on his side over a gash from where he'd hit the railing. The soldier scoffed to himself, of course he felt safe--Steve Rogers didn't have the common sense to kill the soldier and run for his freedom. Steve Rogers was a punk, a goddamn nuisance, and oh he did know how to run his hand against the soldier's ribs to make him stop fidgeting against a bandage.

The soldier swallowed back whatever saliva had been building, feeling an uncomfortable swelling in his throat push back against the liquid. He drew a breath, cleared himself, as Steve Rogers tucked a blanket around his shoulders and brushed his forehead again.

He allowed himself to look, to study Steve Rogers. He knew Steve Rogers, his body had known Steve Rogers. He'd seen it all before, projected images on screens, stories in text books, archives of comics, walls of memorials and memorabilia. Steve Rogers and James Barnes were best friends, were the stuff of good war movies, really. They had all the necessary elements; trust and guilt, worry and secrets, senseless tragedy, unnecessary sacrifices. In the private collection in Indiana, owned by Gary Worther, the soldier had spent about six hours dedicated to reading wartime letters and notes confiscated by the SSR. Correspondence between anyone and Steve Rogers was a hot commodity. 

The soldier had read every letter Steve had written while overseas. Exceptionally few were to any Bucky Barnes, since Barnes was at his side, but he almost always received honorable mention. And from the letters the soldier had decided two things. That a) Barnes was a buzzkill, constantly telling Rogers what to do and b) that Barnes got laid. Every other letter Steve had mentioned some exploit or another of Sgt. James Barnes, from the lens of Steve Rogers.

It was one of the first things which struck the soldier as odd. That Barnes was such a controlling figure in Roger's life, but seemingly always telling him what to do and disappearing to be off with some date. The soldier disbelieved this. He had come to see these dates as excuses, and more quickly this translated into separate missions. Missions which Rogers was not invited to participate in.

The soldier sighed, because even then Steve was a gullible idiot. Maybe SHIELD wasn't that good, Steve Rogers was just the perfect sap for the job.

One letter in particular stuck in the soldier's head. He supposed that was why he kept still and let Steve take care of him. It seemed the most insightful, really. Those letters had so many redacted lines that Steve could have been a great poet and no one would have guessed, but this particular letter kept replaying in memory. It was why the soldier sought Peggy out, really. 

Steve had been writing to Peggy and, as nearly always happened, mentioned Bucky. The soldier had found it interesting the flow between Buck and Bucky, whether he was being talked about or addressed. Steve had written that Bucky had always been in love with his mother. That Sarah Rogers was the love of Bucky's life. Redacted section. And Steve had added that he'd wished Bucky was more respectful of that, and that he regretted getting his nose broken. That he regretted what happened to Bucky at all.

It was by large one of the more ambiguous of Steve's letters and one which the collector had simply sighed and shrugged and told the soldier, "That's between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes."

The soldier found himself staring back while Steve pressed a hand to his cheek, muttering about his fever. The soldier didn't believe he had a fever, was hardly ever if ever sick, and didn't think this was a priority. However rather than saying all of this, he instead simply looked at Steve. And swallowed back some hesitation, and said, "I didn't expect you to be this dumb."

Steve didn't answer, gave a small smile, stroked his cheek, "You really aren't Bucky Barnes."

"The way they talk about you, in history books. You were a master tactician. A perfect solider. But you let so many things cloud your judgment." The soldier evaluated. 

Steve considered this, "For someone who doesn't trust very many things, I wouldn't expect you to trust a history book."

The soldier softened, nearly smiled, "So, let's pretend then that someone who is your very good friend is suddenly an amnesiac and can't remember anything about you. Where do you start?"

"You make it sound easy." Steve grumbled, readjusting the blanket as the soldier squirmed out of it. He kept his eyes down but eventually, upon realizing that his effort was futile, he blinked down his long nose at the blanket and sighed. "I guess I'd start at the beginning? With little things. Because, the way I think of it, maybe that's what's most important."

"Like what?" The soldier watched his movements with calculation. But even then, there was some give in his soul that just wanted to listen.

"Like," Steve thought this over, "Rather talking about something recent, talking about the old stuff. The real old stuff, stuff that wouldn't be in a textbook. Then work up to fixing the textbook."

"Okay," The soldier exhaled. He worked up some nerve, eyes flicking between the morose Steve Rogers and the rain beating on the windows. He drew a breath into his chest, hoping for some warmth to accompany it. He told himself he wanted this. He wanted to know whose body he was in. "So how did we meet?"

Steve seemed startled by the question, brow knitting as his eyes flashed to meet the soldier's. "I've known you my whole life. If....if you want me to say 'you'?" Steve looked quickly to the soldier for approval. The soldier shrugged and a slight color rose to Steve's face. "All right, yeah. I've known you my whole life, I think. Seems that way. But, probably my earliest memory?...I was four. And we were at a sand garden two blocks down from where Benny's used to be, back before Alley Pond Park. They made it official back in the 20s or 30s, but before they cleared the land into the park, it was them sand gardens. Our version of a playground, I guess. I was drawing in the dirt with a stick, and you tried to take my stick."

"I sound like a jerk."

"You were." Steve nodded, his eyes shining. 

The soldier looked over his face. His mission must have been dripping out of his ear, because he was fixed on the eyes piercing into him like twin drills. When Steve filled up with emotion, letting it stay held back, it seemed to stay only in his eyes, sloshing around like twinkling search lights looking for an escape. The color seemed to grow brighter the more the blonde kept quiet, like a neon burst of cerulean.

Rogers must have been fidgeting under that smooth skin and rambled, "I complained about," hesitation, "you a lot. I let you fight battles for me, you always wanted to fight battles for me. It drove me up the wall, knowing you were always sticking your neck out. And I called you names, and I'd snap at you. But...but you weren't really a jerk."

The soldier considered this, "I broke your nose."

Steve opened his mouth and thought better of it, closing it and letting it snap shut with a very hesitant grin. A pink flush etched over his face that he would have denied on pain of death. "Yeah, well...I might have deserved that."

"Why?" The soldier shivered and Steve finally won his silent argument over the blanket, rubbing the flesh and metal arm both through the cotton. The soldier noted this silently. Steve had yet to mention the arm, yet to acknowledge it, and now Steve was trying to be helpful and warm both arms as if both could use it. The soldier formed two theories about this. Theory 1, Steve is in denial that this is not Bucky. Theory 2, Steve might actually be concerned about both arms, might actually not think it's all that different to have a bionic arm. The soldier didn't know if this was endearing or insane.

"Well," Steve mumbled, leaning away. He kept his face down, hidden. "Bucky broke my nose when we were fifteen. He--you. You told me something private and we argued about it. It wasn't the reaction you wanted, not what I wanted to hear, and we fought. And, being me, I kept ramping it up until I ended up with my nose broke. Wasn't all that uncommon for me."

"What was the private thing?" The soldier asked.

Steve flushed pink again, "It. Um. If I could go back in time and ask Buck, 'Remember that thing we don't talk about? In an apocalyptic future where you've turned into an elite assassin with no memory of past events, and have kidnapped me in order to learn about your history and in a subversive attempt to recover both of our freedoms from the corrupt governments we represent--then can we talk about it? I still think you'd say 'Shut up, Steve.' "

"It's not apocalyptic." 

"Is to me." Steve countered.

The soldier blinked and pressed, "Could I be me, without knowing this?"

Steve recoiled somewhere deep inside himself, the blue light blinking in his eyes. The soldier decided that this was perhaps not the route he should have gone to get more information. Not because it wasn't working, it was working beautifully, but because his stomach clenched unexpectedly. The solider found himself wanting to take it back, to sit forward and apologize and hold the emotion back in Steve's eyes before it burst out of him. And this made his intestines knot further, a cat's cradle of regret bubbling up, because some of those emotions--the new emotions--were reminding him that he was changing. That the neural paths in his brain were re-growing and mutating him away from being the solider. The solider simultaneously began to mourn for Bucky Barnes and for himself--because if he were to become Barnes again or someone new, what would happen to who he currently was?

"No," Steve muttered, tight lipped. "I guess you wouldn't be."

The soldier moved to correct himself, to say it wasn't important, but Steve Rogers--noble idiot--started to talk. "You were always better with words, you know. Even when you were fifteen, you were so...you were loud and light and this big personality, but you were a mother hen. Always popping up and keeping people in line. Bit of a control freak, really. M'sorry, it's what it was. And I was mad at you, cause it seemed like for a while, I was always mad at you. From like, twelve to fifteen years old. I'd get mad and we'd not talk about it. Act like it was normal with us. Then we finally got in a fight, an' you popped me, and that was that.

"You were good with words, but I wasn't so...quick to hear them. Do you know what I mean? You were....trying to say something without saying it." Steve looked so full of emotion he might bust, bleeding out all over the floor. Two thirds of the solider thought that this was a waste of energy, but a whole third was waiting for the blonde to just man up and say something shocking.

"You used to tease me about my mom. You had a crush on her when you were little. As we got older, it turned into jokes. Usually respectful. My mom knew about it, she thought you were being funny. Used to play along some times. The two of you together, riling me up." Steve sighed.

"One day you just told me she was beautiful. No joking, no context. We were sitting in my room after school, before you dropped out a year later. Before you moved in. Sitting in my room, in this awkward silence, because there was something going on between us. And you told me she was beautiful. And before I said anything you started telling me how she was beautiful, and what you thought was beautiful, and..."

Steve was looking down, his neck practically curled into a question mark. The soldier pushed himself up, sore muscles and shivering aside. Steve reacted and reached out, trying to offer an unnecessary support. The soldier swatted him away, but returned the gesture, squeezing Steve's arm and trying to jerk the other into looking up.

"What did I think was beautiful?" The soldier muttered. Then, with more force, "I want to know what I used to think was beautiful. I'd...I'd like that."

Steve opened his mouth but it hung there a moment before he gave in, "You just described her. I wish there was a picture, but there isn't. Not one I have, at least. I'm not good with words like you were. You said...you said she was golden, like you imagined a sphinx would be, her hair like spun gold. Nothing out of place, like marble. Like she was a statue. All smooth, and her eyes were...her eyes were too sad. Too blue and wet and something about the shape of them. That you couldn't stop looking. That you couldn't breathe around her."

Steve tilted his head to the side, "So, I naturally wanted to beat the shit out of you."

"He meant you," The soldier commented.

Steve flushed a deeper pink and laughed, "No, that's a bit obvious, isn't it? You wanted to fuck my mom. That was never in question. But,"

Steve tilted his head in the opposite direction with a small smile. He looked away again, refusing eye contact. "See, you weren't making a joke about fucking my mom. You were being dead serious. You wanted me to know she was beautiful. You wouldn't tell me what was going on with you, with your family, why you were spending so much time---refusing to go home after school. You just, very purely, turned all of that around and instead of saying what was wrong with you--said how I was different. How I was lucky.

"And I always thought you were the lucky one," Steve smiled at nothing. "What with your lungs and what not."

The soldier considered this, "So, what was the secret? Why'd I break your nose?"

Steve pulled his shoulders to the side and tilted his head in a fluid motion betraying some deep hesitation. But he did it with a smile on his face. "You don't have the context for it. Imagine you, at fifteen. Then imagine me at fifteen, but then take away about five inches in height, and maybe forty pounds in weight from what you'd imagine. And make my lungs hurt when I breathe and things are blurry to see, and my hearing isn't so good. And I'm anemic, and tired. ...Imagine that little kid, and then imagine you. Pretty much the same as you are. Sometimes I think that's why you don't remember, if you could see the real me, maybe you'd.....So imagine that little kid, and you're telling him about how great his life is. And how he should be grateful. He should be happy; meanwhile you don't wake up in the night because your heart hurts, or your bones hurt, or because you're just crying and you can't tell which thing hurts most."

Steve sucked his teeth and exhaled. "It...it was a hell of an argument, is all. And during it, we both said some things, is all. And you ended up breaking my nose. And after I curled up in bed with you and cried and apologized and we agreed not to get into debates of whose got it worse."

The soldier studied Steve's face and pressed, "What was going on with me?"

Steve Rogers, pillar of loyalty and honesty, reached out and ran his fingers over the soldier's chest. "Maybe we should let that stay forgotten."

6  
"You're being selfish, you know," The soldier pointed out, grumbling as his hand sought out a better grip on Steve's jacket. 

"You're the one who said we needed to change locations," Steve grinned, his arm wrapped around the soldier as they hobbled together like a four legged monster. The soldier tightened his grip on Steve, guiding him down the side walk.

"Imagine if someone saw us," Steve beamed. His arm locked around the soldier's waist. 

"That would be against my recommendations." The soldier mumbled.

"Oh come on," Steve smiled, looking up into the sun, glad to see it was still there. The air smelled like he remembered, faintly dirty like he remembered--but not a polluted dirty, a gun grease and factory sort of smell that powered turbines somewhere in Steve's soul. "We look like two homeless guys bumming onto the subway."

"We are," The soldier retorted, gripping onto the stair rail, one hand on Steve's back to grab onto him if need be. Steve felt his face burning as they stepped down into the entry. The grin wouldn't leave him. The idea that he'd been in Brooklyn the whole time. That the soldier was acting like a worried mama bear, constantly needing some physical contact with Steve to assure himself that this horrible, bad, no-good, fucked idea could work.

It's a forty minute ride on L and C train from Brooklyn to W 96 St, once walking to the subway platform was out of the way. The soldier managed to push Steve past the MTA and onto a train, settling protectively next to him. Steve beamed at the thought that the Winter Soldier had a metrocard. The soldier practically threw an arm around him, huddling close. Steve smiled as their knees knocked together and mumbled, "You know, I don't weigh ninety pounds anymore."

The solider seemed to adjust this into his measurements as wheels turned somewhere and responded, "Muscle memory."

Steve smiled, looking at his shoes, thinking about the ache in his neck and spine that had dwindled to a dull throb. "Seems like the longer you've been on your own, the more of that you have."

"I..."The soldier looked at his hands, unsure what to do with them. "That's been a problem all along. Cell regeneration."

Steve kicked at the black rubber non-slick surface that was beginning to peel off of the floor by his seat. He took a breath, "So, eventually, you could remember." 

"No," The soldier was curt. He was still examining his hands, silently counting the number of knives hidden on his person, taking stock of the gun tucked into his shoulder. His hands seemed square and large and dumb and he had a doubt flicker through his head which never arose when he was alone. He became worried, and it was playing in lines around his eyes. Steve barely noticed, the solider noted, because he knew this face better than the soldier did.

"Would you want that?" The soldier prompted, swallowing hard, wondering where this urge to ask was coming from. "If...If I'm this, then I'm me."

The solider began to chew the inside of his mouth and Steve studied him. He swallowed and added, "I don't want anyone telling me who I am anymore."

Steve closed his eyes and thought about this same exchange, if it had happened when Steve had woken up. If Steve had been allowed to make decisions for himself instead of waking up in a SHIELD facility. If SHIELD hadn't been holding its hands around Steve like he was a baby bird that had fallen out of his nest. The SHIELD that lied to him, that had secret agendas, that was tainted by Hydra. If Steve had been given a choice, if Steve hadn't trusted so blindly...He wondered if he would have wanted Bucky coming into his space and telling him who to be. Telling him that it was all a lie, that everything he had done had only been framed to look good. But he immediately thought, yes. Yes. Every time. He'd put up a fight and he'd do it with tears, but he'd go.

Steve hesitated and glanced around the empty train again, a paranoid shiver rising through his core. "I used to be happy with being a solider, I somehow thought what we were doing was right. There was a clear bad guy, I had an honest team. But now I understand. With your situation...I don't think...I'd want to know. I'd want to be the real me." 

When the C pulled in, the solider pulled Steve from his seat, a hand immediately over his lower back. Steve leant into him, the two walking together. Steve closed his eyes and let the soldier take his weight, pulling him along. He didn't particularly want to look at how empty the station was, though he felt deep in his ribs like he ought to be congratulating the MTA that the trains were still running. He wondered bleakly when New York would catch a break.

The soldier guided him, their bodies creating a perfect shield against the people of Manhattan, wandering the streets with no expectations for a dirty homeless couple.

Walking up to Stark Tower was walking through a grave yard, many of the streets closed, police officers warding off entry to the block. Steve winced when they were shooed away. The police probably assumed they were scavengers, here to benefit from the fall of the city to yet another plight brought on by SHIELD. 

The solider and Steve slipped down into an alleyway, the soldier pressing "Are you sure?" each time Steve pulled himself onto a new level of the fire escape. The soldier kept putting his hands somewhere on Steve's back, guiding him. And Steve would smile at the annoyed heat rising from his chest as he'd snap, "Jesus, Buck, I'm fine."

He made sure to turn his face away before the solider saw his grin.

They climbed up eight stories before finding themselves on a maintenance roof, a block down from the tower. Steve looked over the city from an elevation--though in New York calling eight stories a height was like calling a puddle an olympic swimming pool. 

"Ok," The soldier looked at the run ahead of them. His hands tucked into his waist band, his chest out, shoulders back. He assessed the distance, his jaw set. Steve looked into that face and felt himself quiver. "Doesn't seem so bad. ...What?"

"Nothing," Steve flushed, still an ache was rising in his chest. He averted his eyes but the soldier had already reached out and grabbed his arm, "Are you sure you can do this?"

"Yeah," Steve kept his eyes on the gravel at his feet. He couldn't look in that face, not right at this moment. Not in that stance. Not standing over a ledge.

The soldier tightened his grip on Steve's arm, "You with me?"

"No, yeah." Steve protested. He took a step forward, looked out over the jump to feign confidence. "Like a 20 minute jog, really. Let's go."

After the first jump to an adjacent building over a three yard gap, Steve dug his hands around metal bars and nearly screamed, his spine aching in a steady throb. The soldier's hands immediately clasped and pulled him, hugging Steve. "You're okay. You're...Are you okay?"

"Yup," Steve breathed, "Let's go."

The soldier released him and pressured him to walk ahead, climbing up five more flights of fire escapes. They were able to cross the next roof with more ease as there was a helipad that connected it to the adjoining building. The soldier kept pulling Steve, and shoving Steve, and forcing Steve to fit into shapes and configurations that made his spine scream out in protest, his neck and head throb. 

Steve wondered if there was a special term, a particularly poignant term, for the sort of concussion one gets from being plowed head first through yards of concrete. He assumed it was typically 'death'.

"No condition" was a phrase getting floated out by the soldier repeatedly. Steve drew a breath against these comments. A small portion of his soul kept beaming at the over-protective stance the soldier was showing him. Another portion reacted the way Steve always would, and wanted to swing on him.

The final building was at too much of a distance for either of them to attempt, joking or not. The soldier held Steve flush to his side and offered, "Hold on."

Steve clung onto the soldier, muttering, "Try not to actually break my neck."

"Got it," The soldier mumbled and released the fire escape ladder. 

Steve pressed his face into the soldier, thinking bleakly that the two were falling together this time. Air whipped around his head as the fire escape crashed down. There was a momentary weightlessness, where all Steve considered was that he had Bucky. 

A loud twang, much cursing, and a potentially broken shoulder later, and Steve was clinging to Bucky's side while the soldier's metal arm latched onto the final lip of fire escape before the jump to the ground. The soldier growled and yelled, before dropping them harmlessly. He immediately released Steve with a snapped, "You're heavier than you look."

Steve smiled at this comment, catching his breath, before taking the soldier by his flesh arm and giving it a squeeze, "You okay?"

The soldier nodded, his metal arm giving a mechanical whirl as the plates readjusted themselves. "Almost thought I lost it."

"We've gotten this close," Steve looked across the four lane road between the Tower and the alley they were hiding in. "I didn't see any police choppers spot us....didn't even see any."

"Yeah," The soldier agreed, looking apprehensively around. "It's....dead."

"I feel like this is stupid and going to hurt," Steve began, raising his eyebrows, "But...run for it?"

The soldier looked warily out into the empty road ahead of them. He processed the scenario, watched the shadows, listened for police, readjusted his arm again, "Front door entry? Why not?"

Both took off running across the street when, not unexpectedly, a barrage of bullets began to spray from the Tower at them. Stark Security systems whirled like old Gatling guns and Steve had a surprised thrill through his spine, thinking that this was the sort of battle he was quite accustomed to running into. No aliens at all.

Stark's weapons systems were fully equipped, however, and Stark had the Tower on lock down. A series of red lights from the second floor denoted targeting systems, should the Tower find itself under attack. And in this instance, it did.

The soldier pulled ahead, throwing his metal arm up to let it take any hits, while keeping Steve at his back. The soldier threw himself into (read: through) the main glass doors, creating a path for Steve to run inside. 

Steve punched his passcode and the pair threw themselves into the building proper while the barrage of bullets slowed and emptied.

Steve prompted, "I don't know who's going to be in here."

The soldier nodded and took the gun from its hiding place, presenting it forward. He tossed aside the holster and loosened his shoulders, the metal arm giving another whirl of ingenuity. Steve perseverated a moment on the soldier's lost throwing knives, but nodded and watched as the operating system synced the doors behind them with layer after layer of reinforced glass.

"JARVIS," Steve shouted into the echoing chamber.

While under lockdown, the Tower relied on it's secondary circuits, all efforts of the generators being focused to security. The empty entrance hall appeared as an abandoned church, the mezzanine where the Wizard would yell down to Dorothy from a black hole. Steve looked up at that void which normally served as Starks' business office.

"JARVIS?"

"Yes, Captain Rogers," The disembodied voice of the operating system rang out. Steve smiled while the soldier flinched and trained his gun, spying for cameras around them.

"JARVIS, are there any other agents in the building?"

Steve looked up the scale of the entryway, at least two floors tall before cut off by the mezzanine of Stark's personal office. Steve began walking toward the west block of elevators, the soldier following slowly, nervously behind.

"No, Captain Rogers. All Avengers agents are currently in Washington, DC, save for yourself. You are currently Missing In Action, Sir." JARVIS responded.

"JARVIS, Tell him I'm Home. Redirect some of the reactor energy to the building so that I can get around." Steve pressed the button for the elevator, the soldier still seeking out the disembodied voice to aim at. Steve calmly cleared his throat and added, "I'm requesting we keep this building on the strictest lock down. Whatever the code word is for that. I want this to be a much better fortress than anything Howard ever had. Howard was kind of known for cutting corners on safety."

"Do I tell him you are alone, sir?" JARVIS asked as Steve and the soldier stepped into the elevator. Steve shrugged, "If you feel like it."

The elevator doors closed and the soldier lowered his weapon, looking around the metal casing he and Steve were now locked in as green lights flashed across each floor in a security scan. Steve looked eerily calm, breathing slowly as the ache in his neck worried him. The soldier eventually prodded, "Where are we going?"

"WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?" Tony's voice snapped as the read out over the floor number bubbled into the Hulk Buster camera system.

The soldier flinched and pointed his gun at it.

"You know where I am, I'm in the tower." Steve raised his voice, "I'll be there, I just need to--" 

"You've been missing for five days!" A warped face, filled with cracks, projected in flashing red light over the digital read out. Tony's face flitted in and out of view as the broken scanner continuously refocused and resized the image. Steve narrowed his eyes as warning pop ups began to flood Tony's field of vision.

"I can explain it all later," Steve assured, "What's going on there?"

"WHAT the FUCK do you think is going on?!" Tony shouted.

Steve looked at the soldier, crossing his arms. The soldier looked tepidly back. Steve offered, "What can I do? What about a doomsday device, or weapons vault, you don't have any of those, do you?"

"Level 32." Tony grunted. "You'll know it when you see it."

The hologram cut out.

"Level 32," Steve repeated, "You get that, JARVIS?"

"Yes, sir." JARVIS agreed. The elevator slowed to a halt and Steve and the soldier both spied around the corners before walking out. 

"Well," The soldier grunted as they strode toward a metal vault door, "That looks promising."

"They need me," Steve relayed, punching in a pass code. JARVIS needed to override the security measure to reflect that Tony had just given Steve clearance. It took a moment during which Steve added, "At least, that's what I tell myself."

"You're still in no condition," The soldier protested, but his voice was accepting. 

Stepping inside, the overhead lights began to flick on, moving down the grid by block. Each row illuminating further columns of metal shelving down a seemingly endless vault. The thunk of each row coming to life creating an echo throughout the halls. The soldier blinked at each thunk and grunted, "Stark can't pay for lights that all come on at once?"  
"Maybe it saves electricity?" Steve suggested.  
"Dude has all the advanced AI technology that exists, cutting edge robotics and weaponry, but there's shotty wiring in his master weapons storage?" The soldier rolled his eyes. 

"He's dramatic, Buck. It's probably just to be dramatic."

The soldier groaned.

"Captain Rogers," JARVIS announced, "Mr. Stark is suggesting you search through the second hallway in blocks F-L. He's saying that...well, he's rambling a lot..."

"Thank you JARVIS," Steve turned toward the solider and nodded.

Both walked down the corridor, the soldier giving a bitter laugh, "Good thing he was so specific."

Lines of steel cases in glass containment units were under lit with blue track lighting. The soldier nodded, "I see what you mean about drama."

"I'll take F-I, you take J-L." Steve immediately set to taping the glass cases with his pass code to open them. 

The soldier raised his eyebrows, "Okay, so what's the pass code?"

Steve hesitated before answering, "ITALY."

"Okay, The soldier shrugged and approached the glass cases. Steve found himself staring at his shoulder blades as he began opening cases and looking through weapons read outs. Nothing, huh? Steve thought. He followed suit and tipped open the first of his glass cases.

Case F and G had nothing that clicked into Steve's memory, nothing that screamed 'Stark wants me to have this'. Case H made him step away.

Steve's breath caught in his chest and held there as he swallowed, letting his hand slide in to the glass container. His hands ghosted over a steel box he recognized as entrapping something Stark clearly had wanted him to find. 

"I thought," He whispered. He looked hastily over his shoulder to find the soldier had not heard him. He exhaled gratefully. The tesseract was supposed to be in Odin's treasure room. That was the agreement, the understanding, which all of the Avengers had been under.

Steve let his hands rest over the top of the case, loosening the lid and allowing blue light to spill out from it's hiding place. His shoulders drooped. This couldn't be what he had expected. The light wasn't right, the brightness was pulsing. Steve found his mouth going dry as he wondered what this was. He began arguing with himself further. Thor Odinsson was not the smartest man Steve had met, but the infinity gem definitely wouldn't have slipped past him. This particular cube reeked of SHIELD, not some trickster god Steve had sketched being burned by venom in an art class in 1938. 

Steve wouldn't put most things past SHIELD after the couple weeks he'd been having. Either the tesseract had been swapped, or this cosmic cube was a man-made one. A scientist's attempt at instilling magic into form. Steve grumbled to himself. Steve didn't believe in magic much himself, but after seeing technology advance seventy years in a few minutes, seeing aliens, fighting aliens, and learning that there was such a thing as a god of thunder, Steve was feeling pretty liberal.

The lid tipped off and Steve found himself wavering a hand over the warm pulse. His understanding had once been that this was a power source, but after Thor's stories of the gauntlet he couldn't help but wonder. Perhaps it had only been a power source because this was what Zola and Schmidt had sought. His hand sweating, his reached in and grasped the cube.

His elbow and shoulder locked, a static shock resonating through his body as electricity sought to ground itself through him. His hair stood on end as the sweat on his hand fizzled into steam. Steve gasped at the surge through his body, with every capillary vibrating. 

He raised the cube, holding it out with both hands as if it were a holy relic, with   
reverence, respect, fear of what would happen if he dropped the damn thing. 

He turned slowly toward the solider, clutching the cube with building anxiety. He briefly wondered what his hair must look like, as it was certainly raising off of his head. He felt like Boris Karloff, his body aching and clumsy. He hadn't made the Karloff comparison since he had first been hit with the serum, and a fear crept up his spine.

With such raw power, Steve became certain that the cube could do whatever he asked. A fire seemed to set in his ribs and his eyes caught into that blue pulse. He knew it reflected in his eyes, in his soul, that his whole being was becoming dedicated to this.

He could ask it anything, Steve thought. He could have anything he wanted.

A voice seemed to whisper in his ear, asked him what it was he would want if he could have it. If there were no obstacles left in the world. He could be a king, a god, a savior of humanity. He could undo Ultron, banish the Skrull away; he could foresee and reinvent any upcoming battle. Steve felt the pull to help others weigh heavy in his chest, but something else whispered no. He wanted something else.

 

7  
"I have to go to Washington," Steve cleared his throat. He watched as the soldier continued poking at the bathroom faucet. One touch on, two touches off. One touch on, two touches off. 

The soldier hesitated and Steve clenched his muscles. He fiddled with the towel in his hands. His chest tightening enough to cut off his air, Steve stepped into the bathroom and tossed the towel onto the sink. The soldier touched it again. Water ran. Touched it again. Water stopped.

Steve began to remove his uniform, letting it drop. He stepped into the shower which immediately hit him with 72 degrees of thankless water, pouring down his back and against the bruises he hadn't known were still etched into a purple mass.

The soldier touched the sink.

"JESUS!"

The soldier touched the sink.

Steve stuck his head back out of the shower, "What was that for?!"

"All that money and Stark can't pay for a good water heater?" The soldier mumbled. 

Steve lowered his defenses, water still running down his legs, hitting against his shoulder. The ache in his neck throbbing loud enough he thought the water might actually be hitting him in bursts. "Buck,"

The soldier turned away from the sink and walked back into the bedroom. Steve sighed, watching his shadow. Counting breaths and hoping he didn't need to run out to keep that shadow from leaving.

The bed creaked. Steve stuck his head back in the shower.

His chest gave a distracted throb when he heard the soldier outside in his bedroom, rifling through his clothing. Steve's pulse quickened, he wondered if the soldier would come across the pictures of Bucky that Steve had hidden throughout the room. He wondered how the soldier would or could react to them. If they were normal, if they were to be expected, or if the soldier would find him disgusting, pathetic. 

Steve leant his shoulders back against tiles and let the water hit him, closing his eyes. What's the worst that could happen? His brain ran through a menagerie of awful outcomes. He nearly laughed. Steve Rogers should know better than to ever ask.

The worst already had happened, and again, and again, each and every time Steve opened his eyes. His Buck, he thought as his stomach twisted. He leant his head into the tiles as well, water hitting his chest and belly, running down his legs.

He felt the one thing he had been spared was the soldier not connecting anything between Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and Italy.

Why would he, he has no memories, idiot. Said one Steve Rogers. Another pleaded, but he acts like Bucky. He worries like Bucky. He has Bucky's face and more and more of Bucky's mannerisms. Steve exhaled. Besides, who was to say Bucky remembered Italy? He'd been so drunk he'd barely been able to keep his eyes open, slurring and slipping all over the room, arms around Steve's neck while Steve struggled to make him stay in bed. His mouth on Steve's neck, trying to pull him onto the bed.

Steve pressed himself up against him, moaned. He uttered, "I...I..."

But Bucky had already brought him to his lips and held him still. His mind scrambled quietly. Steve wasn't like him, Steve wasn't interested. He thought of all the times he had stayed up late and watched Steve breathing in the dark, begging a faceless god that Steve would survive. Wishing he would wake up and see him, taking in his body and smiling. He'd told Steve about it, and Steve didn't want him, and he didn't deserve Steve.   
"She would be beautiful, and soft," Bucky promised. Steve fidgeted away from him,   
"What are you talking about?" But Bucky was on a roll--- and her body would make him scream. He wanted that for Steve, wanted him to be undone in someone, regardless of who. Steve whispered, panting, his voice breathy and deep, "I love you."

She would have to be smart, Bucky reasoned. He was exploring points on the blonde trying to make him moan. Laid out on his back Steve was much more vulnerable and Bucky could take advantage. He could run his hands anywhere he wanted, watch Steve writhe. She would have to be smart, very smart, smart enough to be Steve's match. He was so fucking brilliant, so good with his hands. Bucky never had a head for art. And he wanted her to sing. He didn't know why. He wanted her voice to melt him.

Bucky was undoing Steve's shirt, his own chest heaving, the tension below his navel growing into a throb. Steve was there under him, he was pinning him, neither remembered him getting on top. Steve's body was lithe and accommodating and assisting Bucky in removing fabric between them. And she would definitely have to want children. Bucky liked the idea of Steve reproducing, of sharing himself in the gene pool, gaining some mitochondrial immortality. 

"You're drunk--," Steve breathed. Bucky looked over the blonde's chest, expanding and contracting and tensing against Bucky's touch.

"Stop talking." Bucky commanded.

His hands worked over Steve's waistband, sliding the fabric over his hips. Steve lifted himself to accommodate. Bucky shifted back to kissing Steve's throat. He bit into him causing the blonde to hitch his chest, grab onto Bucky aggressively. Bucky smiled against his skin, still captive under his teeth Steve hissed when he pulled away.

He'd squeezed his eyes shut and was biting his lip, the sting at his jugular leaving his chest aching. 

"I can whisper," Bucky breathed. "So I don't sound...so..."

Steve nodded, not opening his eyes. Bucky smiled and whispered, "Tell me what to do."

Steve thought about it. He wanted it only so long as Bucky wanted him. He didn't really want anything. Well no, that was a lie. He wanted Bucky to be happy. He didn't think he'd ever work up the nerve to be in this position again. He needed to make Bucky happy.

And Bucky's eyes were fixed on him, he could feel them boring holes into him and heating his skin everywhere they took him in. He knew they were on the bite mark, on his chest, on his face that must have been screwed up like he was in pain. And Bucky was straddling him, their hips pressed against each other. Heat radiating off of him and mingling into Steve's confusion. It felt too masculine, Steve decided. He wasn't ready for that.

"Go down on me," Steve whispered. Bucky smiled, kissing along his clavicle. The blonde began to breathe heavy, afraid to moan. Moaning didn't sound very masculine, didn't sound very confident, sounded vulnerable. He held his breath instead.

He would never admit anything he was thinking to Bucky. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself if Bucky knew this was Steve's only real sexual experience--a drunk, demanding Bucky pulling him onto a dirty bed in a blown out hotel room to go down on him all 'cause he was too nervous to let himself get fucked. 

Steve began to relax when his mouth dragged along his ribs. His heart remained too fast for comfort, too reactive, too frightened, but his eyes were closed and the pressure felt good. The way Bucky lapped at him and over him. The way Bucky paused to take him in, to watch him react, to adjust and continue. He felt safe. 

Bucky smiled up at him from over his stomach. Steve's body was taut and defined, muscled. His body had somehow perfected from the one Bucky had often fantasized about, but Bucky didn't give a shit so long as it was Steve. Steve's breathing hitched again.

He was thinking about Peggy, a pang of guilt grabbing his chest but feeling too good to let go. He pictured her hair tickling against his abdomen and he grit his teeth to fight the urge to look down at her. His fingers dug into the mattress and he tried to slow his heart rate. Tried to focus on the idea of her brown eyes glancing up at him, flashing a white smile. She lowered her face and he felt hot breath and before she bit into him he'd already begun to sigh. 

When Bucky exhaled against him, Steve was already twisting, his breaths deep and fast and his body itching to move beneath it's captor. He was gripping at the mattress and seemed to be tearing it up. Bucky looked up the length of him again, watched his chest snag.

Peg took him into her mouth and he gasped. His body began to wriggle, wanting to move her and direct her and die all at once. She pulled away and a whisper, "What do you want?"

Steve groaned, "You...You need to, there." As Bucky resumed.

Bucky whispered, "Keep talking."

His heart seized and he groaned again, "Your mouth. Your fucking perfect mouth. Fuck. Please, you just...how are you so fucking good?"

Bucky smiled and looked up at Steve. His eyes still squeezed shut, his chest heaving. Bucky tightened his grip around Steve, slid an arm around Steve's waist and pulled his hips up.

"Fucking mouth," He whimpered again. "I want to die. You're so fucking good. How did you get so fucking good?"

Peg was moving along him, making him moan, running her tongue experimentally wherever he would let it, and he would let it do anything, and he wanted everything, and she obliged silently, lovingly. Her finger tips were grazing him, teasing him along as her mouth hummed at his size in her lips.

He panted, "You're so good. Please. Fuck. I want you. Fuck. I....Fuck."

Bucky nearly giggled but was mindful enough not too. It was a shame, it might have killed Steve entirely. Bucky closed his own eyes and smiled, his erection grating against his pants as his body bobbed slightly. 

Steve gave another groan, louder, his chest heaving, "I want you so fucking bad. How come your mouth is so fucking good?"

Bucky paused looking up at him and whispered, "You can do better than that." 

"Better than that," Steve scoffed, a small laugh rattling through his chest. His breaths barely felt like they were apart, instead crashing one into the other. His body rolled. "Better than that. I'm Cyrano de Bergerac. I'll make you fucking cry and ask and beg your nameless, faceless god until every fucking exclamation you moan for the rest of your life is my name."

Bucky giggled in a breath.

Steve was fueled. "I will...."

He hummed.

"I will." Steve breathed. "I will make you bite your fucking tongue off. And choke."

Bucky redoubled his efforts, swallowing back his own saliva, letting his mouth fill and work over Steve. Bucky tightened his arm propping Steve by the waist, slid his other hand to Steve's shaft and pulled in tandem. Steve moaned.

"And...and I'm supposed to be impressed. That perfect fucking mouth, probably could get the perfect fucking scream." Steve smiled at the ceiling. "No, I want you to choke."

Bucky was gasping, his heart thudding down against his ribs as he bobbed against Steve, wanting to be touched and instead feeling empty. There was a fire churning in him like a chemical solution bubbling over, the skin over his abdomen feeling too tight. 

"You fucking tease," Steve snapped. "I'll...I'm no good at this."

Bucky looked up at him but Steve had a smile fit to end the lives of thousands. Steve hummed, "I'm no good at this, baby. That mouth is fucking perfect. You're fucking perfect.

"I can't be mean, you're so fucking good all on your own. How'd you get so fucking good? Fuck, girl. Perfect fucking mouth."

Bucky balked at being called 'girl'. He found himself slowing down, a disappointed smog in his chest choking out his heart's attempts to beat back a solution and move forward.

"You have the perfect fucking mouth." Steve whispered.

Bucky resumed but felt dutiful rather than excited. His jaw was beginning to lock and his deflated heart felt hollow.

"Perfect fucking mouth," Steve whispered again. "Bucky, you...fuck..."

Bucky opened his eyes. Steve was keeping his face screwed up at the ceiling and his eyes shut.

"Bucky, your mouth is fucking perfect." Steve moaned. "I...I can't....Can't put that mouth on anyone else. Just you, always you. I love--It's...fucking....don't stop!" Steve whimpered when Bucky pulled away to study him. "D...don't stop!"

Bucky took him in his mouth again and began sliding himself along Steve's body, putting more pressure on him. Steve groaned and arched his back, "Fuck, yes, Buck. I ...ugh....your mouth is fucking perfect. You're perfect."

The blush on Steve's face spread all the way down to his nipples. Steve pitched himself and undulated under Bucky, growling as he bit down on his lip. He pressured his hips up against Bucky, fucking his way up. He spat out, "Bucky, Bucky, just... "

"STEVE!" The soldier shouted from the other room.

Steve nearly choked and slipped, his hand slapping into the tile of the shower wall. He drew a strangled breath, hand still clutching himself. His chest heaving, his head whipped towards the bathroom door, "WHAT?"

His chest gave an uncomfortable thump, he debated running from the stream of water hitting his face and shoulders out into the bedroom, but the hesitation of having his dick in his hand kept him glued to the spot. 

"YOU NEED TO SEE THE NEWS." The soldier followed up.

Steve sighed, rolling his eyes, and groaned. His cock still twitching in his hand he stared at the shower wall, frowning. He gave it a college try, but was too startled, too out of his head. He couldn't make himself cum on command, so he gave it up entirely. A small anger burrowed itself into his spine where the throb matched the one in his head and in his hand. If he was going to go running off into another battle and get himself killed, he thought he deserved a little Italy.

Steve stepped back out and grabbed his towel from the sink. His spine began shouting at him for twisting just so, leaning a certain way, continuing to be on his feet...

The bedroom was a wide square room with very limited furniture and almost no style. Steve didn't have time for it; it seemed like he was barely ever here. This was less his apartment and more a storage unit the Avengers let him sleep in between needing him for something. 

On the bed, though, was a heap of man, lying on his stomach, watching television. Steve cleared his throat. The soldier glanced up at him, needing to adjust himself. Steve's shirts were just too damn tight, and the soldier would be eventually making a formal complaint. Steve hadn't had a hair tie so a chip bag clip was holding the soldier's hair out of his face.

"What's the news?" Steve asked, walking quickly to the closet to hide his erection. The soldier complained when Steve passed in front of the television, blocking the news report. 

He was watching the battle in Washington on big screen, chewing at his lip. Steve looked back at him as he pulled on a shirt, at the soldier's attention refocused to the news, at the shape of his body curled around a pillow.   
"It's not good," The soldier muttered. He was kicking his feet in the air, a simple enough gesture but one which made Steve's chest snag. The soldier murmured, "It's like something out of the movies, the capitol is burning."

"Um, Buck," Steve nearly whispered, tying his sweat pants over his hips and approaching the bed. "Have you thought...I need to go to Washington."

"Mr. Rogers goes to Washington." The soldier muttered while Steve got onto the bed beside him.

They watched the battle in DC for a few minutes, with Steve feeling increasingly sick to his stomach. His breathing changed, he began to tremble. Eventually he put his face down in his hands and only listened. The news casters were reporting that the Avengers were being defeated, that there were many combatants and assailants and that aerial support was failing and that communications had been broken off within the Pentagon.

"I don't know if we can beat this," Steve hissed. He buried his face into his arms, crossing them under his head. "By the time I get there it might be too late. That thing almost killed me once already. And...and if everyone else is... my team..."

"Steve," The soldier said firmly, "The summer solider and the sunshine patriot shrink from the service of their country."

Steve deflated, feeling the judgment pour on him. The soldier pressed, "But The Winter Soldier, he was supposed to be someone too dumb to run away from a fight."

Steve sniffled, weighing his head on his shoulders, "You mean it?"

The soldier smiled


End file.
